The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First: Recent Episodes
Sean L. McCarthy
Last Things First asks comedians and funny performers about the historic lasts and firsts in their lives as their comedy careers have blossomed.
Chloe Radcliffe is a comedian and actress most recently seen on the big screen playing a comedian and magician opposite Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper in the film, Is This Thing On? Radcliffe is based in New York City but came up out of the Twin Cities comedy scene in …
Chloe Radcliffe is a comedian and actress most recently seen on the big screen playing a comedian and magician opposite Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper in the film, Is This Thing On? Radcliffe is based in New York City but came up out of the Twin Cities comedy scene in Minnesota. Over the past couple of years, she landed on a bunch of comedy watch lists, from Just For Laughs' New Faces to Deadline to Vulture. Her TV credits include The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson. She hosts her own comedy chat series, In Tandem, where she interviews a comedian who's sitting behind her while riding a tandem bicycle. A second season of In Tandem is forthcoming later in summer 2026. Radcliffe sat down with me over Zoom to talk about all of that, as well as her one-person show, CHEAT, which she first brought to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 and is developing for an off-Broadway run in 2026, as well as for a TV adaptation. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Jenny Gorelick is a comedian, author, actress and former Jersey girl based in New York City. She performs monthly at Club Cumming at her signature show Love, Sex, & Magic and played an adoring fan of “THE Che Diaz” in And Just Like That. Her personal essays and humor pieces …
Jenny Gorelick is a comedian, author, actress and former Jersey girl based in New York City. She performs monthly at Club Cumming at her signature show Love, Sex, & Magic and played an adoring fan of "THE Che Diaz" in And Just Like That. Her personal essays and humor pieces have appeared in The New York Times' Modern Love, Cosmopolitan, McSweeney's, and the New Yorker's Shouts & Murmurs, all of which led to a book deal for The Book of Red Flags. Gorelick joined me over Zoom from Edinburgh to talk about what she learned from her first Fringe production — the two-hander Billy & The Situation with fellow comedian Gabby Bryan — as well as what she learned from launching a comedy dating podcast in March 2020 with a then-unknown Devon Walker, and how her work on the Safe For Work side of OnlyFans speaks to the financial difficulties of making it as a working comic today, including putting up the money for her solo Edinburgh Fringe debut, Sorry, which plays all of August 2026 at the Monkey Barrel in Edinburgh. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Kimmy Gatewood is a comedian, actress and director whose newest project is directing the 2026 movie Descendants; Wicked Wonderland, the fifth installment in Disney's musical cinematic universe following the teenage children of classic Disney villains. She previously has directed episodes of Ghosts, Girls5Eva, Going Dutch, and Sesame Street, the latter of which earned her a Daytime Emmy win in 2021. In front of the camera, Gatewood's credits include multiple appearances on Conan, a small role on the film adaptation of Jersey Boys, a recurring role on Netflix's Atypical, and three seasons on the Netflix series, GLOW, where she co-starred as one of "The Beatdown Biddies" with her tag-team partner Rebekka Johnson. Gatewood, Johnson and Sarah Lowe's own comedy partnership goes back two decades to when they started a musical comedy throwback trio, The Apple Sisters, at The PIT in New York City. Gatewood sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her life and career, including her work as a digital producer for Nikki Glaser, directing a big franchise, and what comes next. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Michael Cruz Kayne is a comedian, actor and writer based in NYC. He wrote for the last six seasons of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he's an Emmy nominee again in 2026. At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, he co-wrote and starred in Terrible Babysitters, a 2013 webseries with D'Arcy Carden, and directed Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson in their two-person musical, Fucking Identical Twins, which ultimately became the 2023 feature film, Dicks: The Musical. You may have seen Michael Cruz Kayne in a supporting role on Severance, or seen him tell jokes on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Ten years after one of his sons died shortly after childbirth, he went viral on Twitter writing about how he realized a decade later he needed to talk about his grief all the time — that ultimately led to an off-Broadway run with Audible for what became Sorry For Your Loss, released as a comedy special on Dropout in March 2026. Michael Cruz Kayne sat down with me over Zoom this past week to talk about his life and career and what comes next, even if the heat wave fried our Zoom in the process. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Jourdain Fisher is a Brooklyn-based comedian who has written for 50 Cent's BET sketch comedy series, 50 Central, appeared on After Midnight, and performed stand-up on both Comedy Central and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His debut self-produced hour Bits & Pieces premiered exclusively on 800 Pound Gorilla's new streaming service, Gorilla Comedy+, in May 2026 with a worldwide YouTube release slated for June 2026. Fisher sat down with me over Zoom to talk about the economics of stand-up comedy today, how much the comedy landscape has changed in the decade since he moved to New York City from North Carolina, how his Tonight Show debut led to a writing gig for Fallon inside 30 Rock, how the pandemic brought him back to Carolina but also gave birth to his social-media character, "Gangster Chef," and why he doesn't do Southern accents much in his stand-up but will pull out a killer Trump impersonation. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Emmy Blotnick is a New York-based comedian who has written for and performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. You may also have heard her joking multiple times on NPR's Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me! or seen her performing stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Conan. Her writing credits are even longer and more varied, including not just Colbert and Fallon, but also The President Show, Mel Brooks's History of the World: Part II, English Teacher, Bust Down, Pause with Sam Jay, Nikki & Sara Live, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, plus a few roasts, including Netflix's most recent live Roast of Kevin Hart. Her new stand-up special, What's Her Secret?, premiered in May 2026 exclusively on the new streaming service, Gorilla Comedy+, and will be available on YouTube starting June 16, 2026. Blotnick caught up with me over Zoom to talk about her experiences behind and in front of the camera, how her new hour evolved over the course of four years, and how this special finally got her posting on Instagram again. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
When Netflix held its first-ever Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles 2022, stand-up comedian Leslie Liao was working for Netflix in human resources and had to buy tickets to see shows in the festival. For the second Netflix Is A Joke fest in 2024, Liao had just quit her day job, and her former Netflix co-workers paid to see her headline a festival show. In May 2026, she was already booked elsewhere, and celebrating the release of her debut comedy special, Silky Smooth, out now through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. She caught up with me over Zoom to talk about the art of writing hyperlocal comedy routines while performing on the road in far-flung places from Maine to Alberta, how she put aside fears of starting comedy at 30, and what it was like trying to balance her day job at Netflix with her nights and weekends developing her stand-up voice. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
If you listen to Pod Save The UK or The Bugle, or you watch Taskmaster, then I don't have to explain Nish Kumar to you. The British comedian — twice nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe — sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his new stand-up special, Nish, Don't Kill My Vibe, out now via 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Kumar spoke about how this special allowed him to experience America in a new way, how Chris Rock inspired him as a teenager, how podcasts have distorted the economic reality of making a living as a comedian, algorithms as the new gatekeepers, and how it makes a difference when comedians making fun of each other are friends versus foes. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Kelly MacFarland is a stand-up comedian with TV credits on NBC, Comedy Central and AXS Gotham Comedy Live. MacFarland also has performed at Denis Leary's Comics Come Home at Boston's TD Garden, and more recently put out a half-hour with Dry Bar Comedy and a set with Don't Tell Comedy. Along the way, she also has released three comedy albums — her newest, Hot Gnome, she self-financed as a video special on YouTube in 2025, with the album released in April 2026 via Blonde Medicine. Kelly and I caught up over Zoom to talk about why and how she has so many newer projects — another special, Wit Happens, is available for rent on Prime Video — how her career ambitions have changed since losing both of her parents, the ramifications of appearing as a contestant on the inaugural season of NBC's reality-TV weight-loss series, The Biggest Loser, and what keeps her going in stand-up while living in the suburbs of Boston. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Named one of Variety's Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2025, Joe Dombrowski first broke through in 2017 when he went viral for pranking his fourth-grade students and landed multiple appearances on Ellen. Now with more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, and another 1.6 million on TikTok, Dombrowski released his first hour special, Dad On Arrival, in April 2026 through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. The comedian sat down with me over Zoom to talk about those pre-Ellen years, when he was moonlighting as a spin instructor, and summer coordinator at the Detroit Zoo in addition to developing his stand-up, sketch and improv chops in the Detroit-area comedy clubs; how he convinced Louis Faranda at Carolines on Broadway to take a one-nighter chance on him as a headliner; the importance of establishing "My Straight Friends" as a monthly showcase at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles despite living in Seattle; and how much it meant to him to perform stand-up on the final season of Late Show with Stephen Colbert. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Troy Walker is a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! who also wrote for Kimmel's turns hosting the Oscars, but he came up through the Denver comedy scene while also graduating from law school and working in money laundering compliance. Walker returned to Denver to record his debut comedy album at Comedy Works. Esquire debuted in February 2026 via Blonde Medicine, with Walker joking about growing up in Colorado and eventually making his way in LA. Walker sat down with me over Zoom to talk even more about that, explaining what has made the Comedy Works in Denver one of the nation's premier comedy clubs in the eyes of headliners and new comics alike, how he balanced one-nighters in Wyoming and Colorado with law school, and how seeing his peers enjoy success helped convince him to try to make it in Hollywood, too. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Maggie Winters is a South Side Chicago comedian who came up in improv with iO and as a stand-up through Lincoln Lodge's FemCom program, and she first found a wider audience online with millions of views for her front-facing character videos on TikTok and Instagram. 2023 was a breakthrough year for Winters, as she appeared as a recurring character assisting the youth group in HBO's The Righteous Gemstones, as well as a "New Face" at Montreal's Just For Laughs. That same year, she debuted her one-person show, Marguerite, which she took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024, and filmed in 2025 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. The show combines onstage storytelling with video clips from her life growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Marguerite premiered on St. Patrick's Day 2026 on the UCB's YouTube channel, co-produced by Abso Lutely, and Winters sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her comedy start, adapting her show for people outside of Chicago, and what comes next. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Mark Vigeant blends clown, improv, physical theater, and multimedia to create interactive comedy shows such as The Best Man Show, which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and 2025, and released as a special on Dropout in February 2026. Vigeant is based in Los Angeles, but started his career with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City where he performed improv and sketch, played Trumpet Boy for The Special Without Brett Davis, hosted a series online for Seriously.TV, and earned himself a screen-test audition for Saturday Night Live. Vigeant caught up with me over Zoom to talk about how his brushes with near-stardom, as well as his 2021 documentary about the "Pizza Rat" phenomenon, influenced his views on fame and ambition; how he was inspired by seeing other Fringe shows by the likes of Moses Storm, Natalie Palamides and The Umbilical Brothers, and how releasing a Dropout special has influenced what he's doing next: a 2026 Fringe show about a YouTube survivalist called Out There. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Jamie Lee is an Emmy-winning writer and producer on Apple TV's Ted Lasso who began her comedy career in the press office of Comedy Central. Her first break in front of the camera came via panel shows, most notably MTV's Girl Code, as well as performances on both Conan and The Late Late Show with James Corden. As a writer, her credits have included HBO's Crashing, TV Land's Teachers, Peocock's Killing It, Hulu's Chad Powers, and of course, Ted Lasso. Her book Weddiculous, led to her starring in the Netflix series, The Wedding Coach. But her current passion project is a stage show, My Friend Katy, investigating how and why her childhood friend died suddenly and mysteriously while Lee was in college. Lee took the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, and she caught up with me over Zoom in March 2026 between shows at Union Hall in Brooklyn as she prepares to adapt her stage show into a special. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Matt Koff is a Brooklyn-based stand-up comic and Emmy-winning TV writer who has spent more than 13 years writing for The Daily Show. His own stand-up was featured on Adam Devine's House Party on Comedy Central, and earned him the title of New York's Funniest in 2023. In addition to his writing for The Daily Show, Koff also has written for The Onion, Trevor Noah's keynote at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and he co-wrote the former Twitter account, @TrumpComedyNerd. His new hour special, Cat Man, premieres March 10, 2026, on VEEPS, with jokes about divorce, middle age, and of course, cats. Koff sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his first big break in TV via the Game Show Network, an even earlier live theater project he worked on called Saturday Night Rewritten (which proved to be a great training ground for his writing for The Daily Show), and how he separates his often political comedy day job from the comedy he pursues in the clubs at night. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Steve Sweeney is a comedian and actor from Boston's Charlestown neighborhood who has performed on big stages and bigger screens for more than four decades. His newest project is Townie, a documentary-style stand-up film making its North American premiere at the New York Comedy Film Festival in February 2026. It's executive-produced by Peter Farrelly, one of the Farrelly Brothers who previously have employed Sweeney in memorable supporting roles in films such as Me, Myself and Irene and There's Something About Mary, where he played a cop confronting Ben Stiller's zipper scene. Sweeney, who has his own intimate comedy club in Quincy, shared stories with me reminiscing about his performance on the HBO Young Comedians Special hosted by John Candy, attending USC with Judd Apatow, what he learned working with and befriending legends such as George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield, how Colin Quinn pushed him to become more vulnerable onstage for Townie. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
A dozen years removed from his debut stand-up special, Beta Male on Comedy Central, Kumail Nanjiani's fans can finally see him in a new hour, Night Thoughts, which premiered in December 2025 Hulu and Disney+. In between, he and his wife Emily V. Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay for The Big Sick (and won Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards). On his own, Nanjiani has earned two Emmy nominations (first for guest acting in The Twilight Zone, the second for his lead performance in a limited series for Hulu's Welcome to Chippendales). He also shared in a Screen Actors Guild Award win with the cast of Hulu's Only Murders in the Building. Night Thoughtsfinds Nanjiani in contention for his first Golden Globe, for Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television. His performance catches fans up on how fame has and hasn't changed him, most strikingly by how the public reacted to his body transformation for Eternals, and then for their reaction to the Marvel movie itself. I caught up with Nanjiani over Zoom to see whether all of that therapy has translated into better mental and emotional health for him in receiving both validation and criticism from strangers online, and how he's slowly become more comfortable putting himself out there in bigger and bigger pop-culture franchises. In 2026, you're already guaranteed to see him in the second season of Amazon Prime Video's Fallout, as well as the upcoming season 21 of Taskmaster. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
It's the end of 2025, which means it's time once more for my annual December to remember the year in comedy with my friend and colleague in comedy criticism, Jason Zinoman from The New York Times. Which funny people met the moment to become Comedy's Most Valuable Performer for 2025? Late-night TV certainly faced a political crisis on top of its existing existential crisis this past year, with CBS jettisoning both of its late-night franchises, and ABC threatening to follow suit with Jimmy Kimmel. We also saw major push back within and outside of comedy regarding the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia; the end of an era with Marc Maron closing the loop on his WTF podcast coinciding with the WTF-ness of video podcasting reigning supreme; the eccentric choices from the likes of Nathan Fielder and Tim Robinson; and a year in stand-up specials that smiled upon relative newcomers big (Hulu) and small (Dropout), with an uncertain future for HBO. As always, there's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Mike Bridenstine appeared on this podcast three years ago in Episode 417. Since then, he has written and published his second book about comedy, "Kansas City Comedy: The Unbelievable True Story of Stanford & Sons, Its Outlaw Owners and the Most Infamous Stand-Up Sets of All Time." Brido also has begun working behind the scenes as general manager of a cherished Los Angeles comedy venue, the Lyric Hyperion in LA's Silver Lake neighborhood, where he and his team also have launched their own production arm, Spesh!, filming and distributing comedy specials. Brido directed the first Spesh! special, Emily Browning: Temporary, Beautiful, which came out in September. On the weekend before Thanksgiving, I sat in on the Lyric's taping of a new hour from Ahmed Bharoocha, then met up with Brido the following day in Lyric's green room to talk about where his own path in comedy has taken him, and what he has learned about talking with other comedians and working with them more closely. Brido — who appeared this year on an episode of High Potential — he has come a long way from Iowa and iCarly. Which means there's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland met in high school in Maryland and have been making magical two-handed theater shows ever since. Now based in New York City, they have taken three shows to the Edinburgh Fringe since 2022, winning The Scotsman's Fringe First Awards for writing for each of them: And Then The Rodeo Burned Down; What if They Ate the Baby?; and A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God, Whoever Reads This First. At the end of 2025, they also began debuting their latest work-in-progress, The Doctor Was His Mother, which ditches their usual narrative arcs and sociopolitical commentary for some simply silly and laugh-out-loud physical comedy. Their work always blends absurdist clown work, modern dance and satire in a way that separates them from most of their peers working onstage today. In December 2025, they're enjoying an encore run of What If They Ate The Baby? at the SoHo Playhouse in Manhattan, and joined me over Zoom from their dressing room backstage to talk about their writing process, how they had to gamble on themselves in Edinburgh before gaining any real exposure in the States, and what sets them apart from the rest of the clowns currently influencing the comedy scene in the mid-2020s. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Jono Zalay began his standup career in Boston while simultaneously earning his Doctorate in Neuroscience, where his research work included giving cocaine to rats. Since dropping his science hobby to pursue comedy full-time, Jono has done standup for The Late Late Show on CBS, Netflix is a Joke, and LMAOF on OnlyFansTV. He also has worked behind the scenes as a story producer or consulting producer on Peacock's Stormy Daniels series, CNN's The United States of Scandal, and Amazon Prime Video's This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy. Jono sat down with me over Zoom to talk about all of that, how he has pranked the DMV, and what made his latest comedy album so special. On Beat Life to Death, he jokes about reaching his midlife years and tells stories about his dad — which makes this extra special, since he recorded this, his third album, just days before his father had quintuple bypass surgery. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Jamie Linn Watson is an NYC-based actor and comedian. You may have seen her as Joanna Roscoe in season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows, a judgy church girl in Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, or as the Sprintern in many national commercials for the company formerly known as Sprint. Watson performs with the Upright Citizens Brigade on one of their house character teams, with former SNL cast member Chloe Troast on the improv team A Crazy Amazing Friendship, with the sketch group LISA, and goes on tour with the Story Pirates. She's also the star of a new movie about the early days of online content creators — SKIT debuts November 14, 2025, on Tubi. Watson sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her own experience with YouTube and social media over the years, what she has learned from watching her peers succeed, and what kind of characters she loves to portray the most. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Saaniya Abbas grew up in New Delhi, attended an all-girls Catholic school in the Himalayas, and only discovered herself once she found herself divorced in Dubai and starting a new life as a stand-up comedian. She amassed a half-million followers on Instagram hosting live videos in the pandemic, and as a comedian has toured the UK and India, and took her first one-woman-show, Hellarious, to the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe. Abbas and her furry cat ears have come to America in November 2025 for the New York Comedy Festival, but first she took some time out over Zoom to tell me about what she has learned from cosplay, social media and experiencing different environments around the world. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Lou Wall is an Australian comedian whose two most recent shows were both nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Wall …
Lou Wall is an Australian comedian whose two most recent shows were both nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Wall has appeared on Australian TV panel shows, and also appeared in the ABC Australia and Netflix series, Fisk. I’ve seen and reviewed all three shows Wall has taken thus far to the Edinburgh Fringe, from their breakneck breakthrough performance about their best frenemy in Lou Wall vs. The Internet, to 2024’s The Bisexual’s Lament – an hour of deranged PowerPoints, gay (derogatory) musical comedy and mentally ill hot takes. One of their bits from that show went viral, prompting them to write this year’s show, Breaking the Fifth Wall, which sold out its Fringe run and has brought Wall to New York City to perform for the first time in an Off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse. Wall eventually found a wall-free space where they could connect with me to talk about their life, career and how truth fits or doesn’t fit when it comes to great comedy. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Chanel Ali is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress based in New York City. You may have seen her on MTV’s Girl Code, TruTV’s Laff Mobb’s Laff Tracks, Starz’s Night Train with Wyatt Cenac, or two showcases she did for Comedy Central in partnership with Refinery29. She also released a full special for Unprotected Sets, available on MGM+. Deadline named her as one of their 15 Comedians to Watch in 2025, based on the success of her debut one-woman show, Relative Stranger, which she took to the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe and the 2025 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In her show, she recounts bouncing around the foster care system, and how a DNA test for a 23andMe commercial revealed a brother she never knew about and how she ultimately found her biological father. Ali spoke to me on Zoom just before her off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse, produced by Sarah Cooper. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
A San Fransisco native who’s based in both New York City and Los Angeles, Dylan Adler is a musical comedian who performed and wrote for The Late Late Show with James Corden. Before that gig, Adler was named a Comic to Watch by the New York Comedy Festival and a Comedian You Should and Will Know by Vulture. He took his solo hour, Haus of Dy-lan, to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, and sat down with me between shows in Scotland to talk about how he differentiates himself from his identical twin who also wants to be a comedian, working through trauma onstage by writing the album and show,Rape Victims are Horny Too with Kelly Bachman, and what he has learned from touring the world with Atsuko Okatsuka. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Britt Migs is a stand-up and sketch comedian based in New York City who was named a Creator to Watch at the 2024 New York Comedy Festival for characters such as her Italian publicist for the Pope. Migs manages Cracked magazine’s social media and runs the Cracked Comedy Club showcases. In addition, she also has written for Reductress, co-hosts Sunday Sauce monthly at Union Hall with her Meat Cats collaborators, and has previous experience behind-the-camera as a producer on TV shows such as Dr. Oz and Deal or No Deal. In 2025, Migs brought her debut solo show, Dolphin Mode, to the Edinburgh Fringe, where she is reliving how she emerged out of her flop era of divorce to embrace a happier, hornier life. Migs sat down with me to talk about the emotional healing in her show, attending a prestigious performing arts camp in her middle-school summers, how to work in the clip economy without succumbing to the algorithm, and what her relationship with a trans man means to her as a comedian and as an American in 2025. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Grace Helbig is a legendary YouTuber, etched officially into the VidCon Hall of Fame earlier in 2025. The comedian and actress who began documenting her daily life in 2007 through solo videos, two-hander sketches with her college bestie and Brooklyn roomie Michelle, and then DailyGrace on MyDamnChannel, eventually went on to write two New York Times best-selling books, and hosted her own talk show on E!. Helbig provides the voice of Cindy Bear in the HBO Max series, Jellystone, and before that, made and co-starred in two films — Camp Takota and Dirty 30 — with her good friend, Mamrie Hart. Grace and Mamrie continue to produce regular episodes of their podcast together, This Might Get Weird. But for the first time, in 2025, Helbig finds herself onstage by herself, recounting her bout with breast cancer in a one-woman show, “Let Me Get This Off My Chest.” I caught up with Helbig at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe festival, where she spoke with me about finding value outside of subscriber and view counts online, overcoming burnout and criticism from all sorts of media, and what her life is like now after almost two decades of content creation. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Ismael Loutfi is a comedian and TV writer currently working on the animated series Mating Season from the makers of Big Mouth. His previous credits include writing for After Midnight, Ramy Youssef’s #1 Happy Family USA, and Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. As a stand-up, he has a half-hour on Comedy Central to his credit, along with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Bill Burr’s The Ringers showcase. His new one-hander, Heavenly Baba, documents his life growing up in central Florida with a Muslim father so devout he fully decorated the outside of the family car with Islamic messaging. Loutfi sat down with me at the start of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe to talk about what his early comedy days and nights were like in Orlando and then Atlanta, what he has learned from the older Muslim-American comedians who came before him, and how he wants to use his voice comedically as part of our society’s current conversation. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Tamara Yajia’s family immigrated to America from Argentina twice before she became a teenager, and the second time prevented her from becoming potentially Argentina’s version of Britney Spears, for better or for worse. Yajia documents it all in her new memoir, CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA: My Life as a Failed Child Star, and she sat down with me to talk about how she dealt with the pangs of life not meeting the expectations her family had given her growing up, how she strayed from performing for more than a decade and what drew her back to show business, where she has worked in the writers rooms of Apple TV’s Acapulco, Hulu’s This Fool, and Netflix’s upcoming show Strip Low. Her own script was picked up for development by an actual former child star in Selena Gomez, but I’ll let Tam tell you all about the importance of having celebrity mentors and surviving mishaps and family embarrassments. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Originally from Caracas, Venezuela, Veronica Osorio moved to New York City after spending her teen years clowning and acting in South America. Once in America, she joined the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where she performed on house sketch teams with Kate McKinnon, Nicole Byer, and Natasha Rothwell, among others. In New York and Los Angeles, she has started and/or hosted all-Spanish and all-female shows, and co-hosted a Star Trek podcast, Treks and The City. Her screen credits include film roles working with the Coen Brothers in Hail, Caesar! and with Steven Soderbergh in The Laundromat. And she has two different stage babies: Medicine Woman, where she puts her certified healer work to test with live audiences at Fringe festivals from Hollywood to Edinburgh to Brighton to Adelaide; Cherry Baby: Lover Girl, a clown where she tries to find a spouse before the show is over. But as we caught up over Zoom, she’s also about to deliver a real-life baby. She shared her journey with me, talking about the dangers she faced in Venezuela, the difficulties in her path trying to find acceptance with her American comedy teammates, and how what’s happening now to her loved ones and other Venezuelan refugees in America, along with her impending motherhood, has impacted her work onstage. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
I spoke with comedian Nimesh Patel when he thought he had licensed his new hour, Instant Karma to Netflix. Shortly after our chat, Netflix decided to film a brand-new hour with Patel instead later in 2025. So our chat found him at a crossroads — Patel had just filmed an episode of CNN’s Have I Got News For You, and subsequently performed a second time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Our conversation spanned from his earliest video sketches and emails with me back in 2010, and tracing his time with Michael Che as part of the Monday night Broken Comedy showcase in Greenpoint, where Chris Rock saw him and hired him to write for Rock’s stint hosting the Academy Awards in 2016. Patel told me how he felt inspired watching his peers find fast success, how he handled free-speech backlash at Columbia University well before Columbia made nationwide news for it in recent years, and how Patel’s approach to crowd work has changed since it has become the trendiest thing to see on TikTok. Patel released his previous specials on YouTube, and filmed a short set for Netflix’s Verified Stand Up showcase in 2023. As he preps his new Netflix hour, he is embarking on a live theater tour that extends through the end of 2025. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Go see Nimesh live on his theatre tour which is happening now through the end of the year. For show and ticket info go to www.FindingNimesh.com
The comedian James Tom now jokes about having told they/them pronoun jokes as far back as 2013 quote-unquote “before most non-binary people were born.”
Back then, Tom felt alone in the world and in the comedy community. But now, living and performing as a gay trans man, Tom told me over Zoom that he feels more like “the estranged father of the non-binary transmasc comedy community.” We also spoke about Tom’s unique experience getting Just For Laughs New Faces in 2021 when the pandemic forced the festival out of Montreal to Los Angeles, writing for the queer pirate comedy, Our Flag Means Death, on Max, what to make of Dave Chappelle and JK Rowling’s obsession with trans people, and what it has felt like to watch other comedians such as Molly Kearney and Mae Martin successfully navigate similar spaces in show business. Tom’s credits also include appearances on Life & Beth, Tuca & Bertie, an Off-Broadway run in 2023 of one-person-show, Less Lonely, and the 2024 Netflix stand-up showcase, Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda. We spoke about all that and more just before hitting the road for a West Coast tour. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Rory Rosegarten started his career as a comedy manager by the time he was 20 with a whopper of a first client: the already legendary Robert Klein. More than four decades later, as founder and still president of The Conversation Company, Rosegarten manages a small but highly successful comedy clientele — his longtime roster includes both Brian Regan and Ray Romano, his newer client Tom Green recently premiered a documentary, a stand-up special and a docu-series all this year on Amazon Prime Video, and he’s currently working with comedian Gary Valentine on a TV series based on golfer John Daly. Rosegarten sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his teenage years interviewing celebrities first for his high-school and then for Playboy magazine, how he recruited other comics to work with a manager younger than them during the 1980s comedy boom, and how some things change and some things never do in the comedy business — including the fact that Rory has done it all while always living in Long Island. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Mike Drucker is an Emmy-nominated and WGA-winning writer and comedian living in New York. Drucker’s comedy career really began with an internship at Saturday Night Live, where he later contributed to SNL’s Weekend Update as well as The Onion before leaving the city and the East Coast for a gig writing for video games with Nintendo of America. So it makes sense that his memoir, Good Game, No Rematch, would share his love letters to video games and their place in his life and comedy. Drucker sat down with me to talk about how he kept his comedy career humming in the background while he worked for Nintendo and later IGN, before returning to NYC, where he eventually found himself at Full frontal with Samantha Bee, rising to the level of executive producer and head writer by the end of that late-night talker on TBS. He also has written for The President Show, Adam Ruins Everything, Bill Nye Saves The World, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and has enjoyed two stints back in 30 Rock writing for Jimmy Fallon on both Late Night and The Tonight Show. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Fooling media outlets into thinking she created the Netflix series Emily in Paris may have won the comedian and Fordham grad Abby Govindan plenty of new followers on Twitter in 2021, but it didn’t go a long way in making her the pride of her Indian American family back home in Houston. It’s just one of the stories Govindan shares in her debut Off Broadway one-hander, “How to Embarrass Your Immigrant Parents,”produced by the comedians Hasan Minhaj and Daniel Sloss.
In the show, she reveals how she struggled with her mental health before finding therapy and stand-up comedy, and learns how to love or at least understand her father’s responses in the family’s group chat. Just 24 hours before her opening night at New York City’s SoHo Playhouse, Abby sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how much has changed for her in the past five years. She explains what she has learned from social media and working with and for more famous comedians, and how Jungle Cat, the stand-up showcase she co-hosts with Mohanad Elshieky, has helped her both mentally and professionally. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Brad Alexander composes music for television and musical theater, whose notable works include the music for See Rock City & Other Destinations, which won the 2011 Drama Desk Award, Richard Rodgers Award and BMI Foundation’s Jerry Bock Award, and more recently served as lead composer for the PBS/Amazon animated series, Clifford The Big Red Dog. I remember seeing and hearing Brad as a piano whiz as early as the second grade, as we were elementary-school classmates and friends growing up in small-town Connecticut. We had a great time catching up on how his career went from the Berkshire Theatre Festival to ad agency music producing, working in piano bars both as a soloist and as a dueling pianist — eventually owning his own business, The Flying Ivories . His other staged works and collaborations include Click, Clack, Moo, We The People: America Rocks!, the Emmy-winning PBS series, Peg + Cat, and he wrote the music for Dog Man: The Musical, which is currently on tour across North America. We spoke about all of that, plus the work he’s currently engaged in adapting the film Bread & Roses, into a stage musical with his wife, actress/singer/writer Jill Abramovitz, who’s on standby for the cast of the new all-star Broadway production, All In. There’s definitely a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
What’s in a name? Since its launch in 2016 by comedy managers Ryan Bitzer and Damion Greiman, along with founding members Ian Adkins and Anthony Leo, 800 Pound Gorilla Media has grown from a small record label into a king kong of comedy distribution, working with everyone from Kevin Hart’s LOL Network to Bill Burr and Al Madrigal’s All Things Comedy, and releasing a cool 100 comedy specials on their YouTube channel in the year 2024. 800 Pound Gorilla Media also celebrated a new licensing deal with Hulu in 2024 that sees at least one of their specials premiering exclusive there once a month, and in this weekend’s Grammy Awards, they’re not only the record label for nominee Nikki Glaser’s Someday You’ll Die, but also the record distribution partner for Netflix’s nominees, too. I sat down with Anthony and Damion at the end of April 2024 to talk about how the comedy business has changed in recent years, and how 800 Pound Gorilla Media has adapted to change with the times. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
We did it, comedy fans. We withstood another year of craziness, hundreds upon hundreds of comedy specials, and have gotten my friend and colleague in comedy criticism, Jason Zinoman from The New York Times, to join me for another December to Remember and try to make sense of it all. 2024, a year that started with a fake AI George Carlin and a captivating Katt Williams performance on Club Shay Shay, that saw the relaunch of @Midnight as After Midnight on CBS, that saw Just For Laughs go bankrupt and cancel their Montreal bash only to promise a revival in 2025, that saw the major presidential candidates sit down with so many comedians for election-season podcasts, can we make sense of all of that? It was a year when Netflix went live in a big way, but were their specials funnier than the hundreds of offerings on YouTube, and can upstarts at Hulu, Veeps and Dropout provide some much-needed competition? What does it say about comedy that a comedy D&D show, Dropout’s Dimension 20, as well as a glorified Gong Show in Tony Hinchcliffe’s Kill Tony, both sold out Madison Square Garden? And who were our Comedy MVPs for 2024? It was obviously a big year for Nikki Glaser, who will host the Golden Globes to kick off 2025, and another banner year for Nate Bargatze. It was also a breakout year for Cole Escola and Alex Edelman, each of whom won over Broadway. Josh Johnson and Conner O’Malley won the internet, or showed us how to defeat the algorithms. Whom else did we give shoutouts to? What made us worry about comedy trends? There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Kelly McCaughan is an actor, writer, comedian and clown whose show, Catholic Guilt, was nominated for Best Newcomer by the 2023 ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and then brought back the following Fringe, where her show received a Best Show nomination from the 2024 ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Originally from outside of Pittsburgh, McCaughan went to college with fellow renowned clown Natalie Palamides where she studied theater, learned improv through the Upright Citizens Brigade, and Bouffon from Red Bastard. Her TV credits include roles on HBO’s Crashing and Apple TV+’s Servant, and she has taken her Catholic Guilt show across America. I caught up with her during her SoHo Playhouse run in New York City in November, which took place the weekend after Election Day. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Chad Daniels is a Minnesota stand-up comedian with more than a billion streams to his credit, and in July 2024 released his 10th comedy special and first …
Chad Daniels is a Minnesota stand-up comedian with more than a billion streams to his credit, and in July 2024 released his 10th comedy special and first for Netflix, Empty Nester, marking his freedom from raising two kids as a single dad in small-town Minnesota. Daniels sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how he balanced it all in his early years as a stand-up, what he learned from working with Mitch Hedberg as a young comic, why he resisted the pull of Los Angeles and New York City, and how landing his 2017 album on Pandora gave him both a new set of fans and placed a new set of expectations upon himself. Since that 2017 album, “Footprints on the Moon,” Daniels has put five hourlong specials across YouTube, EPIX, MGM+ and Netflix — and that’s not even counting another hour he has in the can for Netflix already. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Kyle Ayers is a comedian from Missouri currently based in Los Angeles who hosts the popular podcast and live show, Never Seen It, where comedians …
The state of the comedy industry, like most everything else in 2024, feels very much in flux. Danny Frenkel and Alex Dajani have seen firsthand …
Ashley Gavin is a comedian from New York City who studied computer science and helped craft the curriculum for Girls Who Code, before deciding to …
I spoke to Sam Reich on this podcast back in the fall of 2020, when he was in his first year running Dropout, the subscription-based streaming platform he founded as a follow-up to CollegeHumor where he had worked for much of his adult life. Four years later, Reich and Dropout are ready to graduate to the big leagues, with one of their shows already selling out Madison Square Garden for a live event months in advance, and other shows eligible for the first time for Emmy consideration. Reich talked to me this time about what it’s like seeing his name on an Emmy ballot for the first time — he hosts the game show Game Changer — and why Dropout now is producing and releasing comedy specials. Dropout’s first comedy special from YouTube star and VidCon founder Hank Green debuted in June 2024, with more to come, including two shows Reich saw in 2023 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Sam sat down with me over Zoom to talk about all of that, and how he successfully runs a streaming platform when the rest of the industry feels upside down and backward.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Hank and John Green began influencing online viewing long before we tied the word influencer to social media, launching their Vlogbrothers YouTube channel on Jan. 1, 2007, 17 years, 3.77 million subscribers and almost a billion views ago. Three years later, the brothers founded VidCon, the first and largest global gathering of YouTubers, growing since 2010 to include video pioneers, stars and would-be stars on YouTube, Vine, Facebook, Twitch, Instagram, TikTok and whatever comes next.
Hank Green also co-created The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a YouTube adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that in 2013 became the first webseries to win an Emmy (for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media – Original Interactive Program). Hank, who majored in biochemistry in college, then earned his master’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Montana. Hank has mega millions of viewers these days — watching him host the educational Crash Course series or SciShow on YouTube, or following his exploits on TikTok, Instagram and X/Twitter.
Although you may have laughed more than once at his videos, Hank Green never toured as a comedian until he decided to present his diagnosis and recovery from Hodgkin lymphoma as stand-up. His debut special, Pissing Out Cancer, came out in June 2024 as the first of six comedy specials for Dropout, the subscription streaming platform that rose out of the ashes of CollegeHumor. Green joined me over Zoom to talk about making his debut comedy special, making it for Dropout, how he can still enjoy making videos for any brand of social media in 2024, and what he expects to see when he attends his first VidCon in four years at the end of June in Anaheim.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
At the age of 49 — three decades removed from an FBI drug bust that sent him to prison, and 24 years into his career as an ex-con turned stand-up comedian — Ali Siddiq was still seeking his big break in show business. His debut special, It’s Bigger Than These Bars, found him back in a Texas jail performing for inmates, but it came and went on Comedy Central after a few airings in 2018. The following summer, NBC put him in primetime where he competed against a similarly then-unknown Matt Rife on Bring The Funny (Siddiq won that round). But come 2022, Siddiq, just like Rife, found himself on his own, producing and releasing his next stand-up special straight to his YouTube channel. And just like Rife, Siddiq’s career and fame have skyrocketed since. The Domino Effect: Part 1 has earned more than 15 million views in just over two years, and landed Siddiq on multiple year-end best of 2022 comedy lists. But unlike Rife, Siddiq’s viral fame has yet to lead to a lucrative Netflix deal, even while he continues to rack up massive viewership on YouTube. The subsequent two chapters of The Domino Effect (with some 20 million combined views and counting) have followed Siddiq as he tells the rest of the story of how he grew up in the Houston projects, wound up selling drugs, and eventually getting busted at 19. The fourth and final chapter, The Domino Effect: Pins & Needles, premiered last month on the subscription platform Moment (making him Emmy-eligible), and drops for free on his YouTube channel just in time for Father’s Day.
Siddiq sat down with me to talk about how far he has come without taking a Netflix deal or leaving his hometown of Houston, and how Father’s Day hits different for him now that he finds himself as a successful comedian trying to raise both an adult son and a teenager who will never truly understand the struggle he endured. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Zoë Coombs Marr is an Australian comedian who won Best Newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2012, then returned four years later to win Best Show in Melbourne and receive a Best Show nomination in Edinburgh in 2016 for Trigger Warning, which she performed in drag character as a misogynistic male comedian named Dave. Coombs Marr brought Dave out of his “coma” in 2023 to comment obliviously on everything he’d missed during #MeToo and “cancel culture.” The show she did in between those efforts, Bossy Bottom, was released as an Amazon Original on Prime Video in the spring of 2020, just in time for pandemic lockdown viewing. Now she’s back with a new show that promises to talk about “Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life” and she sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how her early efforts, both comedic and dramatic in Sydney, coalesced into a stand-up career, the importance of creating “Dave,” and how her stunt marriage to comedian Rhys Nicholson may have inadvertently prompted Hannah Gadsby to begin writing her game-changing show, Nanette.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Janine Harouni is a Staten Island native who began her stand-up comedy career in earnest only after moving to London, England, in 2012. Harouni experienced her first viral success as one-third of a sketch group called Muriel whose YouTube fame prompted deals with both the BBC and Quibi, and she’s also appeared onscreen in a recurring role on ITV’s Buffering and a much more supporting role on the big screen in The Batman. Her first solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Stand Up With Janine Harouni (Please Remain Seated) directed by the late Adam Brace, earned her a Best Newcomer nomination in 2019. She returned four years later with a more personal and provoking hour about her impending motherhood, Man’oushe, which earned her a Best Show nomination from the Fringe in 2023. Harouni has taken Man’oushe back home to the States for its first big American tour, and sat down with me between shows to talk about her life, career, family, and what she has learned along the way.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Dave Merheje is an award-winning Canadian stand-up comedian and actor who co-starred in the Hulu series, Ramy, and recently co-starred on the big screen opposite Daisy Ridley in the film, Sometimes I Think About Dying, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is available now to buy or stream. As a stand-up, Dave won the Just For Laughs 2011 Homegrown Comic competition, made it to the finals of the 2013 Seattle International Comedy Competition, and won the Juno Award for Comedy Album of the Year in 2019 for his special, Good Friend Bad Grammar. He also had a special included in Netflix’s Comedians of the World showcase. Dave joined me over Zoom for a wide-ranging conversation that touched upon forming friendships with other comedians in a competitive industry, which not only helped him land a role on Gerry Dee’s Mr. D but also Ramy Youssef’s Ramy, how it feels to see his friends succeed, what it means to make specials or shows just for his native Canadian audience and what it meant to include his family in his Crave special, I Love You Habibi. We also dished on some of his earliest gigs, which included a regular on-air presence on MTV and landing his first TV credit in Australia years before he ever ventured Down Under. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Neal Brennan’s first big claim to fame came two decades ago when he co-created, wrote and executive produced Chappelle’s Show with his friend Dave Chappelle (with whom he’d previously collaborated on Half Baked). Since then, Chappelle has become both the biggest stand-up comedian in the world and a lightning rod for criticism. Brennan, meanwhile, has released three stand-up comedy specials of his own, and directed acclaimed specials for Al Madrigal, Michelle Wolf, and Seth Meyers. Crazy Good, Brennan’s fourth special, and third for Netflix, premiered in April 2024. Before that, he sat down with me on April Fool’s Day to explain why it’s foolish for us as a society to put our faith and trust in comedians to be our sources of news and/or moral leadership.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Rob Haze is a comedian from Atlanta who currently makes his living in Los Angeles performing stand-up and writing for comedy shows on TV — among his credits are Sherman’s Showcase, the ESPY Awards, Kevin Hart’s year-in-review specials for Peacock, sketch comedy for Bleacher Report, stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and most recently, an appearance on the late-night CBS comedy show, After Midnight. Haze released his debut comedy album in 2019, and in March 2024, his second album, Frontin’, is also available with bonus features on video via YouTube. Haze sat down with me to talk about his path from Atlanta to New York City to LA, and what he has learned from watching his peers along the way. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Cara Connors grew up in Chicago but began her comedy career in Toronto, where she studied with The Second City, created and starred in original series for CBC, provided social media humor for the series Workin’ Moms, and earned herself a New Faces slot with Just For Laughs. Since moving back to the states and settling down in Los Angeles, Connors has been seen on E! in the series Dating #NoFilter and launched her own queer-friendly live comedy show, Straight For Pay. That’s also the name for her one-person show that received rave reviews from me and others at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, and has become both her debut stand-up comedy album and special.
The album came out in 2023, the special in March 2024 via Comedy Dynamics.
Connors sat down with me over Zoom, where we talked about the process for getting onto the cast of The Groundlings, how an American comedian starts her career in Canada, finding her true voice onstage and off, her perspective on comedians like Meg Stalter while working the Edinburgh Fringe alongside her, starting over in L.A., how she almost performed on NBC’s Bring The Funny primetime comedy competition series, and the importance of hosting and producing her own live show.
There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Caitlin Peluffo is a New York City-based comedian who played soccer in college and explored a degree and career in the art world before diving into stand-up comedy. A decade later, Peluffo has performed on three different late-night shows on CBS — The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and most recently After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson. She grew up outside of San Francisco, and went home to record her debut album, “Dirty Bird,” at the San Francisco Punch Line. On the eve of its release, Peluffo met up with me over Zoom to talk about what it was like taping her album in front of her parents and extended family, how she found a different path to success in comedy — a joke from her very first time onstage ended up in her act on Colbert — how her TV appearances have differed from each other, and what it’s like to be a “dirty bird” in comedy these days. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Bill O'Neill is an actor and clown from Los Angeles whom you may recognize most readily from his frequent appearances in commercials as a Wendy’s employee. But O’Neill’s career goes back to his early teen years, when he scored a major speaking role in the 2008 film, Drillbit Taylor. A member of L.A.’s burgeoning clown community, he co-starred with his fellow clowns in the 2019 late-night FX series, Two Pink Doors. Last year, one of those clowns, Natalie Palamides, helped direct O’Neill’s latest project, The Amazing Banana Brothers, which took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm and earned him a nomination for Best Newcomer of 2023. O’Neill spoke to me over Zoom as he prepared to take the show to New York City for a limited off-Broadway run in March 2024. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Zach Zucker is a clown-based comedian and actor who splits his time between Los Angeles and London, where he has become known as the ringmaster for Stamptown, a variety show and production company he created that has helped develop and bring other shows from the United States, the U.K. and Europe to the Edinburgh Fringe and beyond. He also teaches clown workshops around Los Angeles. Born in New York and raised in Chicago, Zucker talked to me about his own path, which began with classes at Second City while still in high school, then moving to LA at 18, where he parlayed an internship at the UCB Theatre into an internship for Sacha Baron Cohen. But it was his next step, spending two years studying at École Philippe Gaulier in France, that set Zucker on his current path. It’s where he met his comedy partner, Britain’s Got Talent winner Viggo Venn, which led them to the Fringe, where he created his alter-ego, New York’s greatest bad comedian, Jack Tucker. Jack Tucker is getting his first solo run off-Broadway this winter at the SoHo Playhouse in New York City, and Zucker talked me about how it’s going so far trying to introduce “Jack” to American comedy club audiences, plus he offers some advice for Americans thinking about making their way to the Edinburgh Fringe now. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Jason Sáenz is a comedian who grew up in Virginia, began performing improv in D.C., and became a fixture in New York City’s comedy scene — where he wrote for a house sketch team at the Upright Citizens Brigade, performed stand-up, and went viral for his “Saenz Signs” — which eventually got him New Faces at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival, and a ticket to Los Angeles to work on the MTV show, Ridiculousness. But that was just the tip of the ridiculous iceberg for Saenz, who got a job handling the personal social media accounts of Steve Harvey, met a young woman, fell in love, and then fell through a skylight on the roof of his apartment building, leaving him a paraplegic. As they used to say in the intro to MTV’s The Real World: True story! And true to his story, Jason is now ready to talk about all of it. Both onstage, where his new show “The Wheel World” enjoyed two sold-out performances at the Lyric Hyperion in January 2024, and right here on my podcast. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Chris Grace is an actor who grew up in Texas, went to school in North Carolina and started his comedy career in earnest in New York City through The People’s Improv Theater. Grace has appeared on TV in many shows, including This Is Us, Broad City, and he enjoyed a recurring role as Jerry on NBC’s Superstore. He starred as Christian Gray in the off-Broadway touring production of 50 Shades! The Musical: The Original Parody, and is a longtime cast member of heralded musical improv troupe Baby Wants Candy. Grace has joined Baby Wants Candy and its offshoot Shamilton at the Edinburgh Fringe for the past decade, and last year wrote and starred in his own one-man hit show, Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johansson. Grace joined me over Zoom to talk about his comedic superpowers, why he chose The PIT over UCB, how it’s possible to perform six shows in one day and not lose your mind, why AI might actually help make live comedy more valued, and what comes next for Grace as a stand-up comedian and an actor. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Renee Gauthier is a stand-up comedian, writer, and producer based in Los Angeles who came out of her hometown Chicago comedy scene in the early 2000s. Her first big break came when NBC cast her to play Victoria Beckham’s personal assistant in the reality series-turned-special, 2007’s Victoria Beckham: Coming To America. Gauthier has performed stand-up on Last Call with Carson Daly as well as Stand-Up In Stillettos, competed on Last Comic Standing and worked the panel on Chelsea Lately. As a writer/producer, she has worked on Ridiculousness, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Funny Dance Show, Lip Sync Battle, The Masked Singer, and wrote the presenter banter for the 2024 Golden Globes. She also recently released her first full-length stand-up special, High Blood Italian, in 2023 via Four by Three. Renee sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her early experiences dealing with the show business industry, getting to have a hand in iconic performances such as Tom Holland’s choreographed lip-sync to “Singing In The Rain” and “Umbrella,“ and what it looked and felt like behind the scenes during the 2024 Golden Globes. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Filmmaker Kristian Mercado has worked with some of the biggest names in music, including Billie Eilish and Bad Bunny. Since 2020, Mercado also has become one of the biggest names comedians turn to to shoot their stand-up comedy specials — starting with Hannibal Buress: Miami Nights, and going on to direct Sam Jay: 3 In The Morning, London Hughes: To Catch A Dick, Ilana Glazer Presents Comedy on Earth, Phoebe Robinson: Sorry, Harriet Tubman, Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words, Michael Che: Shame the Devil, Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You, as well as Tomlinson’s forthcoming special which he filmed for her in 2023 that’ll debut in February 2024. Mercado just celebrated his feature film directorial debut with If You Were the Last, which premiered at South by South West and got picked up for distribution by Peacock. It stars Zoe Chao and Anthony Mackie as astronauts stranded in outer space with nowhere to go and nothing to do, and yet they’re both married to someone else. Now what? Rom-com ensues. Kris and I spoke about this movie, his early start in music videos, making comedy specials special, and how he might approach one of his next projects, a biopic of Cheech and Chong. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has joined me every year since 2015 for our own traditional December To Remember the year in comedy. On the one hand, I try to pin Zinoman down on who we might vote for if comedy, like sports, awarded an MVP for the Most Valuable Performer. But we always also get into the meaty issues, themes and headlined the year. So what made 2023 special for comedy? And which comedians did the most this year? There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Jen D’Angelo is a comedian, actress and screenwriter in Los Angeles. Originally from the Philadelphia area, she graduated from Northwestern before heading to LA and joining the UCB system as a writer and performer. Her stand-up credits include appearances on @midinght, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Adam Devine’s House Party. D’Angelo also worked with Devine as a performer, writer, story editor and producer on Workaholics — she has similarly pulled double duty in front of and behind the camera on Cougar Town and Young Rock. Since the start of the pandemic, D’Angelo has really come into her own as a feature film screenwriter, scripting Hocus Pocus 2 for Disney+, Totally Killer for Amazon Prime Video, and Quiz Lady for Hulu. And during the Writers Guild strike of 2023, D’Angelo often went viral on social media for deconstructing the disparities in show business today. She sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how she got where she is and where comedy writers and comedy films might go from here. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Chris Turner is a stand-up comedian and freestyle rapper from England who made his debut as a solo artist at the Edinburgh Fringe with 2014’s …
Actress and comedian Sasheer Zamata may be most familiar to comedy fans from her four years on Saturday Night Live, but she has kept busy …
Courtney Pauroso is an LA-based actor, writer and comedian, who traveled the world and the United States as the child of a military family. She …
Jared Freid is a stand-up comedian based in New York City whom you’ve most likely heard on one of his two highly popular podcasts — …
Martin Urbano is a comedian who grew up in southern Texas on the border with Mexico, but he’s based now in New York City, where …
Kiran Deol is a comedian and actress whose show business career began auspiciously enough when she followed up her college thesis with a documentary short, Woman Rebel, that was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. As an actress, she co-starred in the 2019 NBC sitcom, Sunnyside, and before that, chalked up numerous guest-starring roles on shows such as Modern Family, The Mindy Project, How to Get Away With Murder, New Girl, The Newsroom, Weeds, and Grey’s Anatomy. As a comedian, she co-hosts a weekly show Thursdays in Los Angeles called Peacock, and has performed on Gotham Comedy Live and Hulu’s Coming to the Stage. She’s also a regular on the podcasts Lovett or Leave It and Hysteria. She joined me to talk about her latest project, a one-person show called Joysuck that follows the aftermath when a stranger tried to suck the joy out of her life by smashing her face with a bottle. Deol is taking Joysuck to the Edinburgh Fringe, but first she’s talking to me about it, as well as why Hollywood has sucked the joy out of being a working writer or actor enough for both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA to go on strike.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
As president and chief distribution officer of Hartbeat Productions, Jeff Clanagan runs Kevin Hart’s LOL! Network — which includes radio programs and podcasts on SiriusXM, …
Christina Catherine Martinez is a writer, actor, art critic, comedian and Los Angeles native who was named in 2020 to Vulture’s Comedian You Should Know …
Sophie Zucker was the youngest writer on staff at The Daily Show when she started in 2023, only to find herself and all of her colleagues out of work this summer due to the ongoing Writers Guild strike. Zucker got her comedy start in New York’s Brooklyn scene, forming a sketch collective called Ladies Who Ranch. She picked up her first gig onscreen in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and followed that up with parts in The Other Two and the film Late Night. But she really broke through as both an actress and writer playing Abby on Apple TV’s Dickinson. Zucker spoke with me about her climb up the comedy ladder, how she and her colleagues felt at the beginning of the strike and what she might hope to see at The Daily Show when she returns, as well as her preparations to take her one-woman show, Sophie Sucks Face, to the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Morgan Jay is a first-generation American, the son of an Italian man who was a famous pop star in Argentina before Morgan was born. Morgan …
Allison Raskin is a writer, director, comedian, YouTuber, podcaster, and mental health advocate — she’s perhaps best known for her collaborations with Gabe Dunn, which …
Kyle Kinane is a comedian who was the voice of Comedy Central for a decade. Kinane released his first album, Death of the Party, via AST Records, followed by a half-hour and two hours on Comedy Central, and another half-hour on Netflix. His most recent hour, Shocks & Struts, was released on YouTube in March 2023 via 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Kinane sat down with me while on tour to support the new special, where we reminisced about the 2007 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Kinane’s successes on the game show @midnight, as well as how he defines success in his life and career today.
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Ryan Williams was a segment producer and talent booker for all eight-plus years of The Late Late Show with James Corden, booking all of the stand-up comedians on that show. Before that, Williams held similar jobs at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Show with David Letterman. Williams joined me over Zoom during his first week of unemployment after the end of Corden’s show to talk about his start as an intern with Letterman, watching submission tapes for Stupid Human Tricks and Stupid Pet Tricks, booking talent for Letterman, Fallon and Corden and how the hosts and shows differed, and what the future might hold for stand-up comedians on late-night TV. Or late-night TV, for that matter.
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Jamie Loftus is a comedian, Emmy-nominated TV writer, animator and podcaster. She’s worked as a staff writer on Teenage Euthanasia, Robot Chicken, and Star Trek: Lower Decks, and wrote and starred in her own web series for Comedy Central. She has written and hosted several popular limited-run podcasts — among them, “My Year In Mensa” (2019), “Lolita Podcast” (2020), “Aack Cast” (2021), and “Ghost Church” (2022) — all the while co-hosting “The Bechdel Cast.” Her first book, Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelog documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they’re served today. Her book comes out in May 2023, and Loftus sat down with me to talk about her life and career.
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Jeff Hiller is an American actor and comedian. He currently co-stars in HBO’s Somebody Somewhere as Joel, who welcomes Bridget Everett’s Sam back to their Kansas hometown and becomes her best friend through thick and thin. Hiller is originally from a small town in Texas, but has made his home in New York City since 2001, when and where he quickly found his comedy family at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. His stage credits include Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and he scored recurring roles on Hulu’s The Hotwives of Orlando as well as The Hotwives of Las Vegas, POP’s Nightcap, USA’s Playing House, and most recently FX’s American Horror Story: NYC. Hiller sat down with me to talk about finding his way out from small-town America to big-city improv, the importance of balancing expectations with reality, and how he and Bridget Everett maintain such incredible chemistry onscreen.
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When you hear the words Tape Face, what do you picture? Sam Wills began his comedy career in his native New Zealand as a teenage clown in training, complete with a diploma from a circus school in Christchurch. But after an initial foray into stand-up comedy, his friends challenged him to stop talking so much — so he became The Boy With Tape On His Face. He received a Best Newcomer nomination at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010, and followed that two years later with the Fringe’s coveted Panel Prize. When he broke through in the U.S. on America’s Got Talent in 2016, though, his name was shortened to simply Tape Face. Tape Face was a hit with AGT judges and NBC viewers, and he’s held down a Vegas residency ever since at Harrah’s Las Vegas. He took off the tape to speak to me in Times Square to promote one of his mini-tours away from the Vegas Strip.
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Sarah Marshall is the co-creator and host of the award-winning podcast, You're Wrong About, Podcast of the Year at the 2022 I Heart Radio Podcast Awards. You’re Wrong About revisits what we think we know about history and cultural events that have lodged themselves into our brains, and how that compares with what actually happened. Marshall sat down with me to talk about how she got into podcasting in the first place, why she and co-creator Michael Hobbes started a Patreon a year later, what it’s like identifying more as a talker now than a writer, and what she has learned while touring her podcast with comedian Jamie Loftus. I also might have learned just what I’ve been getting wrong about both podcasts and comedy?!? We definitely learn how Sarah Marshall feels about the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
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Carmen Christopher wrote for and performed on The Chris Gethard Show, eventually hosting the first episode of “Chris Gethard Presents” on Manhattan Neighborhood Network. Christopher’s other early credits included appearances on The Special Without Brett Davis, At Home with Amy Sedaris, High Maintenance, Alternatino with Arturo Castro, Shrill, Joe Pera Talks with You, and Search Party. He currently is a writer and performer on Craig Robinson’s Killing It, is a recurring character on FX’s The Bear, and a writer on Nathan Fielder’s upcoming Showtime series, The Curse. And in 2021, his Street Special performed on the streets and sidewalks of New York City became the first original comedy special for Peacock. Christopher talked to me about his early years learning comedy in his native Chicago, auditioning for Saturday Night Live, and the differences between performing in New York and Los Angeles.
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Millions of people recognize Scott Rogowsky as the original host of HQ Trivia, the daily live trivia app that became massively popular in 2017 before fizzling out in 2019. CNN looked back on that phase of Rogowsky’s life in the 2023 documentary, Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia. But I first met Scott when he was barely out of college, one of the young upstarts in the downtown New York comedy scene in the late oughts. So we enjoyed a fun stroll down memory lane, as Rogowsky reflected with me on how his internship with The Onion led him down a path that included making viral videos with Playboy, a sports talk show with the future editor-in-chief of Vulture, to his own talk show, “Running Late with Scott Rogowsky,” all the way through HQ to his current life in southern California, where he runs his own vintage clothing and sports memorabilia shop, Quiz Daddy’s Closet, in Santa Monica.
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Tara Schuster was a 25-year-old working at Comedy Central who’d worked her way up from interning at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to curating …
Tara Schuster was a 25-year-old working at Comedy Central who’d worked her way up from interning at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to curating Jokes dot com when she hit an emotional rock bottom. She then began learning how to reparent herself, which she turned into her first book, “Buy Yourself the Fcking Lilies.” She did that while rising to become a vice president of talent and development at Comedy Central, working on the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning Key & Peele, Emmy-winning @midnight, Another Period, Detroiters, Hood Adjacent, and Lights Out with David Spade. When the pandemic hit and Comedy Central imploded, taking Schuster’s job with it, she found she needed to do more work healing herself — that’s the focus of her second book, “Glow in the Fcking Dark.” Schuster sat down with me to talk about her transition from comedy executive to self-care expert, and about how the work of healing is never truly finished.
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Matt Knudsen is one of those character actors with a face you can’t quite place, which is why the memoir he’s writing is called, “Have I Seen You In Anything?” One of Knudsen’s first big breaks in show business was playing Jesus Christ as a therapist to Bryan Cranston’s character in Malcolm in the Middle. He has since been seen in episodes of Boston Legal, Big Love, Men of a Certain Age, Key & Peele, The League, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and plenty of national TV commercials. Knudsen is one of the first faces you see, in fact, as a patient of Jason Segal’s in the new Apple TV+ series, Shrinking. As a comedian, Knudsen has released three albums, performed on Conan and The Late Late Show, and earned millions of views for his Dry Bar stand-up special, Good News. Knudsen invited me into his home near Los Angeles to talk about his early life in the merchant marines, how running marathons prepared him for the grueling world of show business, and more.
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Marcella Arguello is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor originally from Modesto, Calif., who has made a name for herself in the Los Angeles comedy scene by standing tall and true to herself. Her regular show, “Women Crush,” started as a weekly showcase at NerdMelt, and is now monthly at the Hollywood Improv. Arguello has performed stand-up on HBO’s 2 Dope Queens, Night Train with Wyatt Cenac, was a regular on Comedy Central’s @Midnight, performed on The Funny Dance Show, and has multiple other TV credits as writer and/or performer. She released her debut album, “The Woke Bully,” in 2019, and in February 2023, put out her first special on HBO Max, Marcella Arguello: Bitch, Grow Up! Arguello met up with me to reflect on how far she has come, how long it took her to get to this moment, and what comes next.
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Comedian and storyteller Gabe Mollica’s one-person show, “Solo,” begins with the declaration that upon turning 30, he realized he had no friends. Wait. Was that true? Is it still true today? After taking his show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022, as well as Winnipeg, Dublin and Dallas, Mollica’s show has settled in for a second limited-engagement run at the SoHo Playhouse in New York City. Mollica joined me over Zoom to talk about what friendship means to him now, whether comedians have actual friends, the realities of the Edinburgh Fringe and the power of a critical review. Mollica also reflects on how his fandom of musical theater and Stephen Sondheim specifically resulted in a sincere correspondence with the late, great American composer, and whether the inspiration Mike Birbiglia’s shows have given Mollica might ever evolve into an actual friendship with him.
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It’s the end of 2022, which means it’s time once again for my annual year-end check-in with Jason Zinoman, critic at-large for The New York Times. Jason and I talk about the top trends we saw in comedy this year, the best up-and-comers in stand-up, the craziest ways comedy intersected with politics. And after all that, could we determine a Most Valuable Performer for the year? It’s our Comedy MVPs of 2022 episode.
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Mike Bridenstine is based in Los Angeles, was raised in Iowa, but it was his time in between in Chicago that helped form him and his friendships as a comedian. Bridenstine has written a book about the rise of the alt-comedy scene in Chicago in the early 2000s, which included his role in starting up a stand-up and video collective called Blerds — among them: Kumail Nanjiani, Kyle Kinane, T.J. Miller, and director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. Since going Hollywood, Bridenstine’s credits have included multiple national TV ad campaigns, Adam DeVine’s House Party and The Eric Andre Show. He has just released his second stand-up comedy album, “Hustle,” and sat down with me to talk about his career and how pivoting his podcast during the pandemic helped get him back into the game.
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Kenice Mobley is a comedian from North Carolina, now based in Brooklyn, NY, whose star has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic. Mobley landed on Vulture’s Comedians You Should and WiIll Know list in 2021, made her late-night debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and performed at the Netflix Is A Joke Festival in 2022 as part of the “Introducing…” showcase. She also launched an Instagram Live and podcast called Make Yourself Cry. Now she’s more fully introducing herself to the world with her debut comedy album, Follow Up Question, out now via Blonde Medicine. Mobley joined me over Zoom to talk about how she pivoted from studying psychology to performing comedy, her work with a nonprofit seeing how comedy can change hearts and minds on critical issues, and what has made her cry along the way.
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Billy Wayne Davis is a comedian who has performed on Conan, Last Comic Standing and Comedy Central, lent his voice and producing skills to SquidBillies, hosted …
Billy Wayne Davis is a comedian who has performed on Conan, Last Comic Standing and Comedy Central, lent his voice and producing skills to SquidBillies, hosted a travel doc for CMT, Morgan Spurlock Presents Freedom! The Movie , opened for Sturgill Simpson, and worked with Sacha Baron Cohen on both Who is America? and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Davis has just released his second stand-up comedy festival, Testify, which premiered exclusively on the Moment platform in November 2022. He sat down with me to talk about taking risks in comedy, his previous experiences in and around Seattle, fatherhood and his new special.
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Jeff Dunham is undoubtedly the most successful ventriloquist comedian of our lifetime. The 60-year-old from Dallas made his first appearance on The Tonight Show back in 1990, competed in disguise as “Pi-Rat” this fall on The Masked Singer, and in between, he has released 10 comedy specials. Six on Comedy Central starting in 2006, followed by a primetime NBC special, two Netflix specials, then back to Comedy Central during the pandemic, where he debuted a “Completely Unrehearsed Last-Minute Pandemic Holiday Special” for the Friday after Thanksgiving 2020. His 11th special, Me The People, came out this Black Friday, also exclusively on Comedy Central. Dunham sat down with me to talk about his career and the state of comedy/ventriloquism.
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Kurt Braunohler started performing comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City in 1998, and took an experimental filmmaking improv group to the Edinburgh Fringe long before meeting Kristen Schaal — with whom Kurt would start a variety show called Hot Tub, win awards and kudos at festivals from Aspen to Australia, and eventually begin his own solo career as a stand-up comedian and actor. He has hosted a game show on IFC, hired a skywriter to puff out the letters HOW DO I LAND?, jet-skied down the Mississippi River for Comedy Central, and appeared on shows such as The Good Place, Bob’s Burgers, and movies such as The Big Sick and Barbarian. In 2022, he released his second stand-up special, Perfectly Stupid, which premiered on the Moment platform before getting wider distribution. Kurt spoke with me about that decision, as well as the other big decisions in his life and career.
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Frankie Quiñones is a stand-up comedian and actor best known for his character work. Frankie stars as Luis on the Hulu series, This Fool, which was just picked up for a second season. He also co-starred in a web series that got bought by TBS, The Dress Up Gang, put out his own stand-up and sketch special on HBO Max, Superhomies, has begun recurring as cousin Miguel on the FX on Hulu comedy, What We Do In The Shadows, and just launched his own podcast, The Frankie Quiñones Show, presented by Will Ferrell’s Big Money Players Network and iHeart Radio. Frankie joined me over Zoom to talk about creating characters such as Creeper and Emo Primo, his real-life relationship with This Fool co-star Chris Estrada, and more.
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Born in China, Jioaying Summers first came to America for college in Kentucky speaking no English, then went to Hollywood looking for stardom. Summers has …
Mike Farah was the first producer hired at Funny or Die, and he has been a vital part of the upstart digital production studio since …
Tenacious D. Flight of the Conchords. The Lonely Island. We have plenty of examples of goofy guys getting together and making mirthy music. Where do …
Subhah Agarwalis a bicoastal writer and stand-up comedian who grew up outside of Chicago, where she first started hitting open mics while still in high …
Yvonne Orji first came to our attention as Molly, Issa’s best friend on Issa Rae’s HBO series, Insecure. The Nigerian-born actress and comedian hasn’t let the …
Forty years after his first screen credit as Modell in the Barry Levinson film, Diner, Paul Reiser is enjoying a career renaissance, co-starring in the …
Liz Miele started doing stand-up at 16, got profiled by The New Yorker at 18, and earned her first TV credit on Comedy Central by …
Jinkx Monsoon is a comedian and singer best known for becoming the first performer to win two seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, first in season …
Michelle Ortiz was born in Los Angeles but studied all over the world, including the Moscow Art Theatre School, and classical opera in Germany. A …
Alice Fraser first studied law in Sydney, Australia, but found comedy and the Footlights while getting her Master’s degree in rhetoric at Cambridge, and honed …
The creator and star of HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show, Robin Thede and her crew already have enjoyed 13 Emmy nominations and one Emmy …
Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher grew up near each other in Atlanta but only became a sketch comedy duo while attending NYU together. As BriTANicK, …
Originally from New Jersey, Anthony DeVito is a NYC-based comedian who has performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, released a half-hour special on Comedy …
Emily Wilson is a comedian and actress based in New York City who performs stand-up, characters and funny songs. Wilson hosts a weekly comedy showcase …
Lance Reddick stars as Renzo, an egotistical human warrior who has liberated the planet Farzar from evil aliens — it’s all part of the new …
Kylie Brakeman is an actress and comedian who broke through during the pandemic, as millions have found themselves laughing and sharing her videos where she …
The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Jackie Fabulous grew up in The Bronx but went to law school in Southern California before deciding in her mid-30s …
Jordy Fox Ellner is the head of film, TV and podcast development at All Things Comedy, the production company launched by comedians Bill Burr and …
Dan Perlman started out as an intern on SiriusXM’s “Ron and Fez Show” and continued working with and for Ron Bennington while he was hitting …
Iain Stirling’s Scottish accent might be known around the world for narrating the exploits of the hit British reality TV series, Love Island. But in Stirling’s first Amazon Original stand-up special, Failing Upwards, the comedian finds himself falling short of everyone else’s expectations when it comes to his physical health and his love life. Stirling sat down with me over Zoom to discuss how growing up in Edinburgh sparked his early comedy career, the realities of working with his wife in reality TV, and why he wanted to make sure his comedy special for Amazon was truly special.
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You may have heard Helen Hong as a regular panelist on the hit NPR quiz show, “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.” Hong also has appeared on the big screen in Inside Llewyn Davis, and in recurring roles on TV in sitcoms and comedy shows including HBO’s Silicon Valley, The Unicorn on CBS, and The Netflix Afterparty. And as a stand-up comedian, Hong has grown up from her start as a “Little Ethnic Girl,” releasing her debut comedy special, Helen Hong: Well Hong, via Comedy Dynamics, which she recorded in the summer of 2021 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Hong sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her early days and nights as a TV producer behind the camera, how she moved to Hollywood without a steady gig and lived to joke about it, filming a nationwide TV commercial with a Muppet, and her life as the daughter of Korean immigrants.
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Wyatt Cenac and Donwill have enjoyed a long friendship and working relationship, with the DJ providing beats and sidekick commentary for Cenac when he had a long-running Monday night stand-up showcase in Brooklyn called Night Train, which begat a Seeso series of the same name. They also worked together on HBO’s Problem Areas with Wyatt Cenac. And since 2011, the duo has presided over a live movie screening event called “Shouting at the Screen,” in which they provide running commentary and more while watching a classic blaxploitation film. After hitting pause for two years during the pandemic, they have relaunched Shouting at the Screen at a new location in Prospect Park. Cenac and Donwill joined me over Zoom to talk about their comedy collaborations, the joys of guiding audiences through cinematic experiences, and how to balance jokes and silly ideas with weighty subject matter.
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Bruce McCulloch is a Canadian actor, writer, and director best known as one of the five Kids in the Hall — who came back in a big way in 2022 — their sixth season of sketch comedy premiered May 13 on Amazon Prime Video, with a documentary about them, Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks, out the following week. As a solo act, McCulloch has written a book (“Let’s Start A Riot”), released two albums, Shame-based Man and The Drunk Baby Project, and created the sitcom Carpoolers for ABC. He’s also directed movies such as Superstar and Stealing Harvard, as well as shows such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Schitt’s Creek, and Trailer Park Boys, and he has shepherded a new Canadian sketch comedy group, TallBoyz, to TV on CBC and Fuse. His latest one-man show, “Tales of Bravery and Stupidity,” will make its off-Broadway debut in June 2022 at SoHo Playhouse. McCulloch invited me to his hotel room to talk about the makings of The Kids In The Hall, and his perspective on it all.
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Addie Weyrich got an early jump on her comedy career, dropping out of NYU when the teenager’s work with the likes of the Upright Citizens Brigade, Improv Everywhere and Buzzfeed were taking off. She scored roles on episodes of Crashing on HBO, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon, and Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell on Adult Swim, and she began appearing in national TV commercials. That jumpstart gave her the juice to go Hollywood, where she co-hosts a live comedy showcase, “Everything’s Great,” with Nick Kocher and Demi Adejuyigbe every month at Dynasty Typewriter. In 2022, Addie plays a wiccan high-schooler in the Hulu romcom, Crush, and co-stars in the film, Mack & Rita, starring Diane Keaton. She sat down with me in Los Angeles to talk about her career, sharing her life on social media via Instagram Stories, hosting an impromptu election party in a gas station parking lot, martial arts and more.
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Karen Chee is a writer and performer for Late Night with Seth Meyers. She has previously written for the Golden Globes and the Amazon Prime Video special, Yearly Departed, has developed TV pilots for Netflix and Comedy Central, and has published humor pieces in The New Yorker and McSweeney’s. All before the age of 27. No wonder she made Variety’s “Power of Young Hollywood” list as well as Forbes “30 Under 30.” Chee sat down with me to talk about getting an early start on her comedy career, how Twitter did or didn’t help her get her dream gig, and how she has managed supporting her grandparents in Korea during the pandemic while still writing remotely for Late Night, and picking up a new gig writing for Pachinko on Apple TV+.
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Alison Leiby is a writer and comedian who started her own showcase at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City called It’s A Long Story. Leiby’s story is still being told. In TV, it has included late-night writing on staff for Comedy Central’s The President Show, and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, as well as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She’s written jokes for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, published essays in McSweeney’s, Cosmo, Marie Claire and The New York Times. And her initial work punching up jokes for Broad City has led to a lengthy working relationship with Ilana Glazer. Leiby executive-produced Glazer's Comedy Time Capsule and her Amazon Prime Video stand-up special, The Planet is Burning. Glazer now is presenting Leiby in her first Off Broadway production of Alison Leiby: Oh God, A Show About Abortion, which begins previews April 25, 2022, at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Manhattan for a limited six-week run. Leiby sat with me to talk about how her comedy and writing career evolved from late-night TV to prestige comedy to her own very personal and politically active work.
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Irene Tu is a Los Angeles-based stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. After moving to Berkeley from Chicago, she quickly established herself in the Bay Area comedy scene. The San Francisco Chronicle singled her out as an “artist on the brink of fame,” while other outlets have named her to the lists of “Bay Area’s 11 Best Stand Up Comedians,” “Women to Watch” and “Comedians You Should and Will Know in 2019.” She has performed on Comedy Central, LOGO, Starz, and Viceland, and has opened on the road for comedians such as Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, and most recently, Taylor Tomlinson. Tu released her debut album in March 2022 via Blonde Medicine — We’re Done Now is a hilarious 15-track collection of stories about coming out and dating, observations about food, dictators, and diva cups, as well as morbid musings about surviving the apocalypse. Proving she can put up with anything, she sat down with me outside in the cold for a quick chat about her album and her career.
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Gilbert Gottfried invited me into his home in 2017 so he could remind us what kind of comedian he was before 2001, why he decided to launch into “The Aristocrats” at the Friars Club Roast of Hugh Hefner for Comedy Central, and how it completely changed the arc of his career. But first, listen to the version of the joke he recorded for his 2005 special, "Dirty Jokes."
This episode originally aired in 2017 as part of "On Second Thought," a series I did for Laughly, an app that no longer exists.
Toronto has a rich history of producing great sketch comedy performers and troupes that have crossed over in the United States. Among the TV series: SCTV. Bizzare. The Kids in the Hall. Baroness Von Sketch Show. And now the foursome from the sketch group, TallBoyz II Men, who broke out quickly from the 2018 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, premiering their own TV show on the CBC in 2019. TallBoyz — created by and starring Guled Abdi, Vance Banzo, Tim Blair and Franco Nguyen, and brought to TV by showrunner, director and Kid In the Hall Bruce McCulloch — not only won multiple Canadian Screen Awards in 2022. They also hosted the ceremony; and already celebrating as their show got picked up in the U.S. The first season of TallBoyz premiered on Fuse in March 2022, with seasons two and three to air later in the year. Guled and Franco sat down with me to talk about their rapid rise in the business and what it’s like to make sketch comedy with one of the greats.
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Katie Hannigan taught preschoolers and performed as a mime before embarking on a full-time career as a stand-up comedian. So far, so good. Hannigan was a New Face at Just For Laughs Montreal, made her late-night TV debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert soon after. Hannigan has appeared on Comedy Central, MTV and The Travel Channel, developed a game show for the History Channel, and wrote a horror-comedy series for SnapChat. She currently co-hosts a podcast with comedian Sarah Tollemache, Lady Journey, and in March 2022, she released her debut comedy album, “Feeling of Emptiness.” Hannigan spoke with me about those past experiences, as well as studying in Russia, pretending she’s a garden statue, and how she’s the captain of her own ship steering her comedy career.
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Matt McCarthy began his comedy career as the Fordham Ram mascot, but quickly carved out a spot for himself in New York City’s stand-up scene, scoring TV credits with Comedy Central on both Live at Gotham and John Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show. You may recognize him from his previous sketch comedy work on Conan, or from his many TV commercials, including a long-running stint as “the cable guy” one-upped by Verizon Fios, and more recently in national campaigns for Progressive and Planet Fitness. He’s also performed as recurring characters on both Adam Ruins Everything and Corporate. For a couple of years, McCarthy combined his comedy and wrestling fandom to write plot lines for the WWE. But it’s his personal and professional relationship with Pete Holmes that’s paid lasting dividends, from their early DIY videos that got them on TV during the Super Bowl, to a talk show on TBS, and they’re now reunited in 2022 on, How We Roll, the new CBS sitcom based on the real life of professional bowler Tom Smallwood. Matt joined me over Zoom to talk about his life and career, with plenty of funny stories about TV advertising, professional wrestling and carving out a separate niche for himself on TikTok as the ultimate film collector.
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Ben Rosenfeld was born in the city formerly known as Leningrad, but came to Connecticut as a toddler with his parents as the Soviet Union began to break apart. His comedy reflects his upbringing as a Russian Jewish immigrant in America. A graduate of Rutgers University, Ben entered a Ph.D. program in neuroeconomics at CalTech before realizing that his career path was meant for comedy instead. His TV credits include Laughs on FOX, as well as The Nick Cannon Show, and he has released multiple comedy albums since 2012: “Neuro Comedy,” “The Russian Optimist,” “The United States of Russia” and “Don’t Shake Your Miracle.” Ben also has published an illustrated coffee table book, “Russian Optimism: Dark Nursery Rhymes To Cheer You Right Up.” That optimism seemed needed more in 2022 than even in 2016, ever since Russia invaded the Ukraine. Ben has tried to find jokes in that, too, producing daily TikTok videos to his more than 270,000 followers. He joined me over Zoom to talk about his comedy career, his Russian heritage, and how he has had to adapt to audiences as the geopolitics have changed.
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Colin Mochrie is one of the most successful and best-known improvisational comedians in the world, having performed on several hundred episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? since 1991, first broadcast in the UK, then later here in America on ABC, ABC Family and since 2013 on The CW. Born in Scotland and raised in Canada, Mochrie learned his theater and comedy skills at Vancouver TheatreSports and Second City Toronto. His face is famous in Canada, having appeared in countless TV commercials and series over the years. In 2022, Mochrie celebrates 20 years of touring North America in a two-man improv production with Whose Line co-star Brad Sherwood. He also tours with hypnotist Asad Mecci in a show called HYPROV. He sat down with me to talk about his career, as well as his most recent appearance on Amazon Prime Video’s Last One Laughing, competing against some of Canada’s other great comedy stars. And he had me laughing quite a lot.
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Ray Ellin has been the host with the most for most of his adult life. He started by MC’ing stand-up shows at comedy clubs in New York City. In the late 2000s, he launched a live interactive talk show, LateNet with Ray Ellin, first for his own website, DailyComedy.com, and later licensing it to air on AOL. Ellin also became the host for the official off-Broadway live edition of The Gong Show, receiving Chuck Barris’s blessing to do so. And before the pandemic, Ellin co-created, hosted and executive-produced a topical stand-up showcase for Comedy Central, This Week at the Comedy Cellar. Perhaps most uniquely, though, Ellin has spent the better part of a decade living almost half of the time in Aruba, where he has produced and hosted stand-up shows for locals and tourists alike on the Caribbean island as Aruba Ray. I’ve experienced Aruba Ray’s for myself, and got Ellin to tell me all about how he wound up a fixture on a tropical island and more.
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From the outside looking in, Eleanor Conway had a pretty good gig going for herself as a music journalist for Virgin Mobile, interviewing the biggest pop stars and singers on the planet. But she was miserable on the inside, and Conway had to change her life inside out. She has since sobered up and lived to joke about it, taking her debut show about sex, addiction and dating, “Walk of Shame,” to more than 10 countries. Conway followed that up with her show, “You May Recognize Me From Tinder.” But her 2021 show, “Vaxxed & Waxxed,” is the first that Conway has brought to the United States, performing in New York City for the 2022 Frigid Festival. Conway sat down with me between shows to talk about her life and career.
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Blair Socci played Division I college volleyball and went to grad school for creative writing before finding her voice through stand-up comedy. Her first break came in 2016 co-starring in the MTV sketch show, Ladylike. After becoming a New Face at Just For Laughs, Socci made her way back to California, where she became the co-host for The Trevor Moore Show on Comedy Central Digital, a frequent touring partner for Ron Funches, and made her late-night TV debut telling jokes on The Late Late Show with James Corden. In 2022, she has lots of voiceover work in the can already, including gigs on Netflix’s Q Force and Adult Swim’s upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. She also co-stars in the voice cast of Comedy Central’s new topical show Fairview, and Socci spoke to me about how she has found her way thus far.
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R.J. Fried turned down the National Hockey League first to pursue his college education, and then a career in comedy. So far, so good. Fried is an Emmy-nominated and WGA Award-winning comedy writer, producer, and performer whose credits have included Triumph's Election Special 2016, (Hulu), Maya & Marty (NBC), Onion Sportsdome (Comedy Central), The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC), Popzilla (MTV), and Rob & Big (MTV). He’s consulted for Sacha Baron Cohen, and he has written and performed onstage for Late Show with David Letterman. More recently, Fried has become a creator, show runner and executive producer for multiple animated series and movies with Stephen Colbert; among them, Our Cartoon President, Tooning Out the News, Washingtonia, and now, the topical toon satire, Fairview, for Comedy Central. He joined me over Zoom to talk about what he loves about his work and what he has learned along the way.
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Al Madrigal grew up in San Francisco and worked in his family’s HR business for 10 years before deciding to pursue a career in comedy. The next decade found Madrigal on the cusp of fame, starring or co-starring in a handful of network sitcoms and even more TV pilots that never made it to air. You likely first got to know Madrigal when he became the Senior Latino Correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Not long after that, Madrigal and Bill Burr launched All Things Comedy, a podcast network and more owned by comedians and built for comedians to succeed, expanding in recent years into making stand-up specials for Comedy Central and Netflix. Since the release of his acclaimed 2017 stand-up special, Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy, Madrigal has written and performed on Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here, and landed on the big screen in Night School, The Way Back, and in 2022, the big Sony-Marvel Spider-Man Universe movie, Morbius. Speaking of comic books, Madrigal has just released his own comic-book series featuring Latino superheroes, called Primos. Madrigal sat down with me to talk about that and everything else.
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In the late 1990s, between the comedy booms, perhaps the hottest live stand-up show in Los Angeles happened every week on a Tuesday night. That’s when Guy Torry began hosting Phat Tuesdays at The Comedy Store, introducing black comedy for black audiences into the lily-white-dominated landscape of show business — or as Torry said, he “brought the hood to Hollywood.” This hip-hop comedy show was good for business at The Comedy Store and great timing for TV, what with two brand-new networks in The WB and UPN having a need for new stars. Torry got roles on both networks with The Jamie Foxx Show on The WB, and Good News on UPN. In a new three-part docuseries for Prime Video, director Reginald Hudlin assembled an all-star lineup including Dave Chappelle, Chris Tucker, Snoop Dogg and Tiffany Haddish to dish on the significance of Phat Tuesdays for both stand-up comedy and for Hollywood. And I got Hudlin and Torry to dish with me.
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Ali Vingiano is a writer, actress and filmmaking comedian who has leveled up over the course of the pandemic. She received her first Writer’s Guild Award nomination in 2022 for her work as a writer and executive story editor on Apple TV+s The Morning Show, and also stars in a largely improvised feature film, The End Of Us, which premiered in 2021 at South By SouthWest. After studying film at both Bates College in Maine as well as in Prague, Vingiano graduated from the Columbia Journalism School’s publishing course and soon found herself writing for BuzzFeed. Eventually, she pivoted to video, making short films and viral videos for both BuzzFeed and Glamour magazine. She also previously worked as a field producer for Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. She sat down with me to talk about how the arc of her life and career came together, and how she managed to help act and make a pandemic-era rom-com about a couple who breaks up in March 2020, only to find themselves stuck with each other in quarantine.
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Beth Lapides is an actress, writer and comedic performer who has appeared on Will & Grace, Sex & The City, and Politically Incorrect. But she is best known for creating the alternative comedy show UnCabaret, which has been running off and on and mostly on since the late 1980s in Los Angeles. Lapides turned UnCab into a Comedy Central special in 1997, and then four more specials in 2012 for Amazon Prime Video. In between, she shot a talk show pilot for MTV. In 2022, Lapides has delivered her first exclusive audiobook about the power of life-changing decisions called “So You Need to Decide.” In the book, she talks about her own decision to create UnCabaret, and also interviews the likes of Margaret Cho, Isaac Mizrahi, Bob Odenkirk and Phoebe Bridgers.
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Nick Vatterott grew up in St. Louis but discovered his comedy voice in Chicago. You may have seen him perform on Conan, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, or his own half-hour special for Comedy Central. Or you may have heard him on his podcast series, Get Rich Nick, in which he and fellow comedian Nick Turner attempt every get-rich-quick scheme under the sun to teach us and themselves about capitalism in America. Vatterott does have a “day job” writing for HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. But the former winner of the Andy Kaufman Award demonstrates his own out-of-the-box break-the-mold approach to comedy with his latest stand-up special, Disingenuous, released at the end of 2021.
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Justin Spitzer is a television writer and producer who worked as a writing assistant on Queer as Folk and Grounded for Life before breaking into the writers room on The Office, where he worked for seven seasons and received three Emmy nominations. Spitzer went on to create, executive produce and showrun his own beloved NBC sitcom, Superstore. In 2021, he signed a new four-year overall deal with Universal Television — his first big project under that deal is American Auto, which received a sneak preview on NBC and Peacock, and stars Ana Gasteyer as the new CEO of Payne Motors in Detroit, who just so happens to know nothing about cars. Spitzer spoke to me about his love for workplace comedies, his own career trajectory in Hollywood, and how having a wife who’s also in the biz — Jenna Bans, the creator of NBC’s Good Girls — helps them both keep on the right track.
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It’s time once again for Jason Zinoman, the comedy critic for The New York Times, to sit down with me as we deconstruct the year that was. This time we’re taking our best cracks at 2021. Was anyone bigger in comedy than Dave Chappelle? Was anyone better than Bo Burnham? We talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of everything in comedy worth talking about in 2021. Was there a Most Valuable Performer in Comedy this year? What does it even mean to be an MVP in comedy? Jason and I hash it all out, and through our differences, we find some common ground. It’s the only year-in-review comedy podcast you need to listen to, so listen up!
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Russell Howard is one of the UK’s most successful comedians, the writer and star of The Russell Howard Houron Sky and Russell Howard’s Good Newson the BBC network. After releasing his first Netflix special, Recalibrate, in 2017, Howard prepared to embark on a world tour in March 2020, with a documentary crew filming his preparations and family life. Instead, his new wife went back to work as a doctor on the COVID frontlines while he quarantined with his family — and from his childhood bedroom, began broadcasting a pandemic talk show for Sky called Russell Howard’s Home Time. When gigs began opening up again, Howard jumped at the chance to perform for live audiences, no matter where or how. You can see the results of his pandemic work in a new documentary, Until The Wheels Come Off, which accompanies his 2021 Netflix stand-up special, Lubricant. Howard spoke with me about his approach to comedy and to life, and how it may have changed 20 years after he first got onstage as a teenager.
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Mary Elizabeth Kelly is an actress who studied musical theater at Northwestern before moving to New York City. She didn’t quite land on Broadway, although she did rack up TV credits performing on Law & Order: SVU, Alternatino with Arturo Castro on Comedy Central, and Netflix’s Master of None, where she went on a date with Aziz Ansari’s character. Kelly and her husband moved to Los Angeles thinking she’d further her acting career, but the COVID-19 pandemic had other ideas. Instead, she found herself on TikTok, where her impersonation skills and mouth-acting parodies introduced her to millions of new fans. Kelly spoke with me about adapting her career from musical theater to TikTok, auditioning for Saturday Night Live in the summer of 2021, developing her first solo live comedy show, and what comes next for her.
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I first met Alex Edelman when he was just a teenager, aspiring to become a stand-up comedian while already scoring a lucrative internship with the Boston Red Sox. He achieved much throughout his 20s. A New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs. Multiple performances on Conan. Co-founded the Off The Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem. Wrote on The Great Indoors on CBS. Opened on tour for the likes of Beck. Wrote and produced the YouTube benefit Saturday Night Seder, raising millions for COVID relief. He’s written and starred in three hit stage shows in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe. His first, Millennial, won him the Best Newcomer Award. His third, Just For Us, launches its first proper U.S. run in New York City in December 2021 at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Directed by Adam Brace and presented by Mike Birbiglia, Just For Us recounts what happened when Edelman decided to attend a meeting of white nationalists in New York City so he could face anti-Semitism, well, in the face. Edelman talked with me about growing up and finding his comedic voice, with plenty of shout-outs to the comedians and others who’ve helped him along the way.
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Carole Montgomery racked up dozens of TV credits as a stand-up comedian during the 1980s comedy boom, with her first big break coming on Showtime’s Comedy All Stars hosted by Don Rickles. After giving birth to her only child, she began a 10-year stint in Las Vegas, initially hired by Steve Schirripa at The Riviera, then eventually over at The Luxor. After returning to New York City in 2006, she performed on Nick at Nite’s The Search for the Funniest Mom in America, Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, and on the TV Guide Network's Standup in Stilettos. But at 48, she couldn’t find regular work in the clubs. So she started her own showcase, Funny Women of a Certain Age. It quickly became a fixture back on Showtime, with stand-up showcases airing on the premium cable network in 2019, 2020 and again in 2021. Fran Drescher, who appeared on that first showcase, is now president of the SAG-AFTRA actors union. Her third showcase features actress Teri Hatcher, plus performances by Wendy Liebman, Monique Marvez, Leighann Lord, Marsha Warfield and Montgomery herself — she joined me to share her firsthand perspective as a funny woman of a certain age.
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Lukas Arnold is an actor and voiceover artist who graduated from Northwestern University in 2017 and decided to pursue stand-up comedy after taking a class at Carolines on Broadway. He was just starting to get gigs around New York City when the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. On March 18, 2020, Arnold posted his first TikTok video. A year and a half later, he had amassed 2.2 million TikTok followers. The young comedian sat down with me over Zoom to talk about using his voice to his advantage both before and during the pandemic, whether there are any secrets to TikTok success and more.
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Jenny Zigrino first hit my radar in 2014 via the Marlon Wayans comedy contest on TBS, Funniest Wins. Zigrino didn’t win the contest, but much like her colleagues who didn’t “win” Last Comic Standing, she may just be winning the long game. Wayans cast her in his parody movie, 50 Shades of Black.She also won a supporting role in the big-screen sequel, Bad Santa 2. She performed stand-up multiple times on Conan, and followed that up with appearances on @Midnight, Adam Ruins Everything, and Adam Devine’s House Party. She also has starred in and created her own Comedy Central webseries, “Bad Ass Bitches of History,” and has both a Comedy Central half-hour and a stand-up album already to her credit. In 2021, she co-starred in the horror comedy movie, Too Late, and Zigrino sat down with me just before she’s ready to film her solo hour special as part of the 2021 New York Comedy Festival.
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As befits her name, Joyelle Nicole Johnson is a comedian and writer who brings joy to the stage. She made her network TV debut in 2018 on Late Night with Seth Meyers, but it was her May 2021 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that made such an impression that Fallon decided to executive produce Johnson’s debut stand-up special for Peacock. Her previous credits have included writing on Broad City, warming up the audiences for Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and she’ll be seen on the upcoming season of HBO Max’s Search Party. Johnson released her first comedy album, Yell Joy, on Juneteenth of 2021, and recorded her Peacock special, Love Joy, on her 40th birthday. The comedian talks to be about all of that and more.
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Ricky Velez grew up in a blue-collar family in Queens and started living a blue-collar career before he discovered comedy, roomed with Pete Davidson, and won the New York’s Funniest stand-up competition. In that order. After winning that contest in 2014, Velez rose quickly through the ranks, earning a gig as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and appearing on Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch list. He has since appeared on Netflix’s Master of None, Comedy Central’s This Week at the Comedy Cellar, and he reunited with Davidson to co-star and co-produce the 2020 film, The King of Staten Island. Davidson and Judd Apatow now have teamed up to produce Velez’s first stand-up comedy special, Here’s Everything, for HBO. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Ahir Shah is a British comedian who was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and 2018. He has turned his 2019 touring show, DOTS, into his first proper televised comedy special, which debuted on HBO Max in 2021. Shah sat down with me over Zoom not once but twice, as we had far-ranging discussions about comedy, religion, the politics of satire on British television courtesy of Nish Kumar’s Late Night Mash, and how Shah feels about having an amplified voice in this time of great uncertainty. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
After spending his 20s as a computer programmer, Will Hines caught the improv bug when he began studying and performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 1999 in New York City. He has gone on to become one of the most respected and experienced improv instructors with the UCB in New York and Los Angeles, as well as working with corporate clients, and he turned his Tumblr, Improv Nonsense, into a book: How to Be The Greatest Improviser on Earth. His screen credits included a recurring role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine as D.A. Carl Kurm, plus appearances on Kenan, Broad City, Search Party, Inside Amy Schumer, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Adam Ruins Everything, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Community, as well as sketches with Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Funny or Die, CollegeHumor and AboveAverage. Will caught up with me during his return to NYC for the North Coast Comedy Festival, where he both performed stand-up and taught an improv workshop.
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You’ve been hearing the wit and wisdom of Harry Shearer for the past four decades. Since 1983, Shearer has hosted and produced a weekly hourlong radio program, Le Show, that mixes news reports, interviews and music that can be equal parts referential and comedic. (It’s heard around the world on the radio or via podcasts.) You’ve also enjoyed Shearer’s contributions to the monumental rockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap, as Derek Smalls, and of course, absorbed so many funny lines from his vocal work on The Simpsons, where he won an Emmy for his work as Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner and Kent Brockman. He’s also been Grammy-nominated for multiple albums, and wrote and directed multiple documentaries about New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Shearer joined me over Skype from his home in New Orleans to talk about all of that, his younger days in The Credibility Gap with Michael McKean and David Lander, and his youngest days as a child actor working alongside legends Jack Benny and Mel Blanc.
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Sophie Santos grew up in locations around the country, moving from Kansas to Alabama and eventually New York City, where she hosts “The Lesbian Agenda,” a satirical comedy show that she plans to take on the road to further her agenda. In 2021, Santos voiced roles in two Audible Original podcast series, Hit Job starring Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer, and Hot White Heist starring Bowen Yang, Alan Cumming and Cynthia Nixon. Santos has just written her first book, a memoir called “The One You Want To Marry (And Other Identities I’ve Had),” and celebrates the book launch Oct. 1 at Brooklyn’s Union Hall in conversation with comedian and actor Aaron Jackson. Santos talked with me about coming out as a lesbian first, and later as a comedian, finding her way and her voice. She also shared stories about working on the dating show, Blind Date, as well as taking her two-person musical parody show, “Riverdale Live,” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Niccole Thurman is an actress, writer, and the co-host of the podcast, The Scroll Down with Marcella Arguello. Originally from Kansas, Thurman studied acting at the University of Kansas before finding her place in comedy through The Second City in Chicago. She served as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and you might also have seen her on such shows as Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show or NBC’s Superstore. You currently can hear as the voices of Jabberjaw, Squiddly Diddly and Dee Dee Sykes in the HBO Max series Jellystone, and spot her in picture frames and flashbacks on the NBC sitcom, Kenan. Her recent writing credits include the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards for Jimmy Kimmel, IFC and AMC’s Sherman’s Showcase, HBO Max’s Haute Dog, FOX’s Let’s Be Real for Robert Smigel, and the Peacock competition show, Baking It, for Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg. Thurman sat down with me to talk about how she found her point of view through her various gigs as well as her growing social media presence. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Bill Engvall is a Grammy-nominated comedian from Texas who made up one-fourth of the mega-successful Blue Collar Comedy Tour alongside Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White, touring from 2000 to 2006 and making a sketch comedy show together. Since then, Engvall also has starred in multiple solo stand-up specials, his own TBS sitcom, The Bill Engvall Show, made it to the finals of season 17 of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, and had a recurring role on Tim Allen’s FOX sitcom, Last Man Standing, in the role of Reverend Paul. He put out his own podcast, “My Two Cents,” as well as weekly videos to his followers, “Sunday Morning with Bill.” In the summer of 2021, Engvall announced he’d be embarking on his final comedy tour, announcing his retirement from stand-up after more than 40 years. But you’ll still see him in the new reality TV series, Blue Collar Auction, and Engvall sat down with me to talk about his career and the lessons he has learned along the way. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Julie Seabaugh grew up on a farm and discovered stand-up when Dave Attell performed during her senior year at the University of Missouri, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism. In 2003, after moving to New York City, Seabaugh launched her earliest independent effort into comedy journalism with the online magazine, Two Drink Minimum. A career with alt-weeklies followed, with stops across the country from the Village Voice in NYC to the Riverfront Times in St. Louis, Las Vegas Weekly and LA Weekly. In 2018, she published her first book, Ringside at Roast Battle: The First Five Years of L.A.'s Fight Club for Comedians, and her love of Mitch Hedberg led to producing/hosting 2020’s Hope on Top: A Mitch Hedberg Oral History for SiriusXM’s Comedy Central Channel. Seabaugh caught up with me over Zoom to talk about her latest project, co-directing and producing the documentary Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11, which premieres on VICE TV on Sept. 8, just before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took down the World Trade Center. Her film also will have a commemorative screening on Sept. 11, 2021, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Seabaugh spoke with dozens of comedians for the documentary, and now she speaks to me. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Tone Bell is an actor, writer, and comedian from Atlanta who began his comedy career in Dallas before going Hollywood. Since winning the NBC Stand Up For Diversity competition in 2011, he has co-starred or starred in multiple sitcoms, starting with Whitney on NBC and including Bad Judge, Truth Be Told, Disjointed, and Fam. His film credits include Sylvie’s Love, Little, Dog Days, and The Weekend. Bell also has gotten to portray the legendary comedian Richard Pryor in the BET series, American Soul, and recently co-starred in the award-winning movie, The United States vs. Billie Holiday. which he jokes about on his second comedy album, One Night in Austin. Bell caught up with me over Zoom to talk about all of this and more. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Michael Hartney is an actor, writer and comedian who was the final artistic director for the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre when it shuttered its New York City operations in 2020, and one of the founding members of the nonprofit Squirrel Comedy Theatre. Hartney created the roles of Stanley and Mr. Williams in the original Broadway cast of School of Rock the Musical, and on TV, he has appeared on 30 Rock, The Politician, The Break with Michelle Wolf, and Throwing Shade, where he also served as a staff writer. He has been a Comedy Central Comic to Watch, a New Face at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, and he can be seen every Wednesday night hosting Characters Welcome, a streaming character comedy show. Hartney joined me over Zoom to talk about how he has navigated through the end of the UCB in NYC to the launch of the Squirrel Comedy Theatre, and everything in between. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Phil Wang was one of only two comedians from outside the United States to be invited to perform as part of Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup series in 2018. Born in England but raised in Malaysia until he returned to the U.K. at age 16, Wang graduated from the University of Cambridge with an engineering degree and the prestige of serving as a president of the Footlights, the legendary campus comedy troupe whose other past presidents have included Peter Cook, Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie and Douglas Adams. For his part, Wang’s credits have focused mostly on stand-up, releasing two previous specials for free on YouTube, making the rounds of the British comedy panel series, and guesting on series seven of Taskmaster. Philly Philly Wang Wang broke ticket-selling records at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and he intended to film it for Netflix in May 2020, but had to put it off for a year due to the pandemic. Wang sat down with me to talk about his career and comedy philosophy. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
What was podcasting like before the iPhone? Jesse Thorn knows. After college radio, Thorn, host of public radio’s Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, broadcast his podcast The Sound of Young America from his home, eventually building his own podcast network, Maximum Fun, which includes Stop Podcasting Yourself; Judge John Hodgman; My Brother, My Brother and Me; and dozens more. Thorn sat down with me to talk about those early years and the struggles that came with it, the power of building your own community, adapting podcasts for TV and streaming, and even some fun stories about the role Thorn played in the launch of Marc Maron’s podcast as well as working with a then-unknown Jonathan Van Ness. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Rob Barnett has been a radio DJ and program director, pivoted to TV as programming director for MTV and VH1 in the 1990s, pivoted back to radio to launch CBS Radio’s “Free” FM in the wake of Howard Stern’s departure, hiring Adam Carolla to replace Stern on the West Coast stations, then left to do his own damn thing online by founding My Damn Channel, where he funded original projects by Harry Shearer, David Wain and Don Was, and recruited folks such as Grace Helbig, You Suck at Photoshop, and Beth Hoyt, and funded more than 30 other original comedy series working with people such as Josh Gad, Maria Bamford, Illeana Douglas, Gilbert Gottfried and Coolio. Barnett also briefly worked with me and The Comic’s Comic. Fourteen years after launching My Damn Channel, Barnett has translated the life lessons he has learned in hiring and recruiting talent into a new line of work as a headhunter, and just published his first book on the subject, “Next Job, Best Job.” Barnett sat down with me to share stories about how radio, TV and Internet media used to work (or not work), and what he has learned about show business along the way. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Tig Notaro has both survived and thrived in the decade since she first disclosed her breast cancer diagnosis to a live audience in Los Angeles in August of 2012. Notaro has released three stand-up specials, two on HBO and one on Netflix, in addition to a road-trip special for Showtime, while she also was the subject of a documentary for Netflix. She poured some of her life story into her own series for Amazon Prime Video, One Mississippi, and wrote a memoir, “I’m Just A Person.” She has been nominated for two Grammys and an Emmy, gotten married and became a mother to twin boys. Notaro has more recently reached new heights with a regular role on Star Trek: Discovery, replaced a disgraced comedian in post-production on the hit Netflix zombie movie, Army of the Dead, and now has turned one of her stand-up performances at Largo into an animated special for HBO called Drawn. Notaro joined me to talk about making Drawn and reflected on her career up til now, so let’s get to it!
Julia Scotti is a comedian who has enjoyed a career resurgence in her 60s, performing on America’s Got Talent in 2016, and in 2020 as part of the Showtime comedy showcase, More Funny Women of A Certain Age, alongside the likes of Caroline Rhea and Carol Leifer. She currently stars in a new documentary from filmmaker Susan Sandler called Julia Scotti: Funny That Way. The film examines Scotti’s transition into womanhood, which happened only after she quit a 20-year career as a male stand-up. Scotti sat down with me over Zoom to talk about why she quit, what it felt like to come back to comedy 10 years after quitting, and the hurdles facing comedians of a certain age and certain gender. Can the comedy industry get its own act together? We talk about that, too, so let’s get to it!
Iris Bahr is a comedian, actress, playwright and author, born in New York City and grown up in Israel. You have seen her in a variety of supporting roles onscreen in the 21st century — most recently in 2021 as a spa nurse in HBO Max’s Hacks, and as a rehab roommate on ABC’s The Conners. Bahr’s other TV credits have included guest spots on Friends, The Drew Carey Show, Star Trek: Voyager, 9-1-1, Good Girls, as well as her own comedy series on Mark Cuban’s HD-NET called Svetlana, plus a recurring role as Rachel Heinemann on Curb Your Enthusiasm. In 2006 alone, she co-starred in the original pilot for The Big Bang Theory, co-starred on the big screen in Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, and debuted her one-woman show, “Dai,” which earned her a Lucille Lortel Award and two Drama Desk nominations. She has written two books and co-authored a third, the Curb-inspired advice manual, “The Book of Leon.” Bahr spoke to me from Tel Aviv about her life and career, as well as her character podcast, X-RAE, which first introduced her to me in 2019. So let’s get to it!
Raised in Wisconsin, Pete Lee began his comedy career in Minnesota before moving to New York City after he made his TV debut on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. It would take a few years after that to get his first Comedy Central half-hour special, and another five years to get his chance to perform on the Late Show with David Letterman. Other early credits included VH1’s Best Week Ever and truTV’s Comedy Knockout, but he has since become a favorite regular on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Lee tells me all about the circumstances in which he scored both of his late-night debuts, as well as his early nights at Acme Comedy Co., what he’s learned from Nick Swardson, Doug Stanhope and all sorts of stand-ups for whom Lee represents a change of pace. All that, plus stories about partying with Prince and Dave Chappelle, but not together, and the inner workings of his first hour special — Tall, Dark and Pleasant — which premieres in July 2021 on Showtime. So let’s get to it!
Rory Scovel is a stand-up comedian, actor and writer who came out of the Washington, D.C., comedy scene, and has managed to incorporate the lessons of improvisation into his stand-up throughout his career, from comedy competitions to late-night TV sets to his latest effort, the comedy documentary, Live Without Fear, filmed by Scott Moran out now on YouTube. Scovel also currently co-stars in the Apple TV+ series, Physical, opposite Rose Byrne. His previous credits include creating and starring in the Comedy Central series, Robbie, a Netflix comedy special, as well as appearances in the film I Feel Pretty, and sitcoms such as ABC's Modern Family and NBC's Superstore. In March of 2018, Rory decided to find out what would happen if he fully improvised an hour of stand-up for six straight nights at the Relapse Theatre in Atlanta. The results of which can be seen in Live Without Fear. How does he do it? Scovel tells me, so let’s get to it!
Rose Matafeo is a comedian, writer and actor from New Zealand who began her comedy career at age 15. In 2018, her stand-up show Horndog won the top comedy prize at the Edinburgh Fringe, and she subsequently recorded Horndog in posterity for HBO Max in 2020. She has become a fixture on TV panel shows in the UK, and you may have seen her as a contestant on the popular program Taskmaster, or performing her stand-up on Conan. She also starred in a feature film, Baby Done. For her latest trick, she has co-created and co-written her own starring sitcom vehicle, Starstruck, in which she finds herself in a rom-com collision with a famous movie star. Starstruck almost got sidelined by the COVID pandemic, but its first season has aired on the BBC and HBO Max, with a second season (and more) already written! Matafeo spoke with me about quarantining in New Zealand for five months while wondering if her TV show would actually happen, the relatively young age of the New Zealand comedy scene, memories from Montreal’s Just For Laughs, and why comedians think of other people as civilians. So let’s get to it!
Josh Johnson is a stand-up comedian and writer from Louisiana who began his comedy career in Chicago. Since moving to New York City, he has performed on late-night TV via Conan, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Kevin Hart Presents: Hart of the City, Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup, and a half-hour special on Comedy Central. He has written for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and currently writes for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. In June 2020, Johnson releases two major projects: an ambitious 33-track mixtape called Elusive, and his debut hour special, Trevor Noah Presents Josh Johnson: # (Hashtag), which premieres on Comedy Central before moving to Paramount+. Johnson caught up with me over Zoom to talk about the problems and opportunities afforded by the COVID pandemic, including the making of his mixtape and his special, as well as what we might expect or hope for the comedy industry as a whole coming out of the pandemic. So let’s get to it!
Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello began collaborating as comedy and life partners after meeting in 2007 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and Magnet Theater in New York City. Their early efforts included a webseries for Broadway Video’s Above Average Productions and a one-man show, The Paul Downs Experience, at the UCB in 2010. Since then, you’ve seen their work together or individually in the Comedy Central sitcom Broad City, miniseries Time Traveling Bong, a showcase special for Netflix’s The Characters, and the 2017 feature film, Rough Night. Behind the scenes, they’ve worked on The Other Two, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens, and The Babysitters Club. Their most recent achievement is Hacks on HBO Max, which they co-created, co-write, and on which Downs co-stars. Paul and Lucia sat down with me to talk about comedy mentoring from one generation to the next, how they and others have become stars without first becoming stars within the UCB orbit, and how getting into character to surprise a monster truck rally in Maine somehow also gave birth to the idea behind Hacks, perhaps the best new TV comedy of 2021. So let’s get to it!
Flula Borg is a German actor, musician, comedian and DJ who began making his mark on American audiences in 2015 — that’s when he broke through out of YouTube to become one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch, as he starred in an NBC pilot and co-starred in the smash hit movie, Pitch Perfect 2. Since then, Flula has popped up in a variety of supporting roles on shows such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Good Place, collaborated on videos with Sir Mix-A-Lot, Ed Helms, and Dirk Nowitzki, and toured on the road with Conan O’Brien and Team Coco. That was before the pandemic hit. Over the past year, Flula has worked with Jägermeister and Save Our Stages to rally support and money for live entertainment venues. Flula will have an even bigger profile this summer as he plays Javelin in the big-screen superhero flick, The Suicide Squad. Before that, he happily spoke with me a little bit about his work with corporate sponsors, his early days in America, collaborating with Grace Helbig, and along the way, we inadvertently came up with a pitch for Flula’s first comedy special and/or series for Team Coco and HBO Max. Call us, Conan! So let’s get to it!
Fresh out of Houston to Flatbush, Brooklyn, Kevin Iso’s friendship with fellow young comedian Dan Perlman led to making YouTube video slice of life sketches with their funny friends. They went from “Moderately Funny” to Showtime. In between, Iso’s stand-up landed him a showcase spot on Adam Devine’s House Party on Comedy Central, as well as This Week at the Comedy Cellar, a recurring role on Hulu’s TV adaptation of High Fidelity, and a writing gig on That Damn Michael Che for HBO Max. 2021 will see if Iso can really break out, as he’s the co-creator and co-star of his own series, Flatbush Misdemeanors on Showtime. Iso sat down with me to talk about managing his expectations on his way up the show-business ladder, so let’s get to it!
Originally from Boston, Sam Jay is an Emmy-nominated writer and critically-acclaimed stand-up comedian. After being named one of Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch in 2018, Jay made her Netflix debut on The Comedy Lineup and released her first album, “Donna’s Daughter,” with Comedy Central Records. Jay’s 2020 Netflix special, 3 in the Morning, was one of that year’s best. As a writer, her credits include the Emmy Awards, the MTV Movie & TV Awards, and until the end of 2020, Saturday Night Live. She left SNL to create, write and star in her own talk show for HBO, Pause with Sam Jay. Each week, Jay hosts a party at her apartment, where she and her guests explore different difficult topics, and then she hits the road to interview strangers about it. Jay invited me over via Zoom to fill me in, so before you hit pause, let’s get to it!
John van der Put is a magician and comedian from the UK much better known by his stage name as Piff the Magic Dragon. Piff has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, toured with Mumford and Sons, fooled Penn & Teller on television and charmed the United States on America’s Got Talent. Piff has held court for the last few years as a headlining act on the Vegas Strip at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. Variety named Piff of the magazine’s 10 Comics to Watch in 2019, and in the summer of 2020, Piff won the inaugural TBS Tournament of Laughs competition. In the fall of 2020, the Flamingo moved Piff into its even bigger 800-seat theater, although he could only sell 20 percent of the tickets due to pandemic protocols. Over Zoom, Piff told me about all of the stages magicians have to go through before they even hit the stage, the economic barriers to entry and success for elite magicians, and how the other Vegas headliners made Piff feel welcome when he first arrived in America — plus how he paid them back by including them in his TV gigs. So let’s get to it!
Dana Gould is a stand-up comedian, writer and performer who wrote and performed on The Ben Stiller Show and spent eight years as writer and producer on The Simpsons. His stand-up special, I Know It’s Wrong, was one of the best specials of the 2010s decade. In 2016, Gould created the IFC comedy horror series, Stan Against Evil. In 2021, his latest project is a webseries called Hanging with Doctor Z, with Gould in the starring role as the Planet of the Apes character hosting a talk show with modern-day celebrities. Gould caught up with me over Zoom to talk about his love for performing as Dr. Z on multiple levels, how his message to the comedians at Just For Laughs Montreal in 2015 still resonates personally with him today, and more. So let’s get to it!
Erica Rhodes is an actress and comedian who got her start at the age of 10, performing on the nationally syndicated public radio hit, A Prairie Home Companion. Rhodes began her stand-up comedy career two decades later, inspired by a bad audition. But things have looked up for her since then. She has guest starred on such sitcoms as New Girl, Modern Family, and Veep, put out her first comedy album, and competed on the NBC series, Bring The Funny. Her first hour-long special, La Vie En Rhodes, is out now via Comedy Dynamics, filmed in the summer of 2020 in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl to an audience of 400 cars. Rhodes and I talked about the unique nature of adapting her hour for COVID-19 conditions, finding her voice, writing for Medium, and what she learned about herself in the past year, experiencing career highs and personal loss during the pandemic. So let’s get to it!
Maronzio Vance has appeared on Wanda Sykes: Wanda Does It, Jamie Foxx's Laffapolooza, Last Comic Standing, and The Tonight Show, and put out a half-hour special on Comedy Central, back when those credits seemed to mean something. Vance has released a double-album of comedy called 20, out on Blonde Medicine, laced with his understated style and cutting wit. The album’s title refers to the 20 years he has spent in Los Angeles since leaving his native North Carolina. We talk about how the pandemic has changed his hair, as well as his outlook on life and comedy, with words of wisdom from Patrice O’Neal, Katt Williams, Mike Birbiglia, Christopher Titus, Paul Mooney, Daniel Tosh, Arnez J, George Wallace and more — plus the backstory and potential future of his working relationship with basketball star Ron Artest. Or Metta World Peace. Or perhaps both of them? So let’s get to it!
Ester Steinberg started performing stand-up on the lunch tables of her high school in Tampa before attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. While living in Los Angeles before the pandemic, she produced and hosted a regular comedy show in the Kibitz Room of Canter’s Deli, co-starred in the Oxygen reality series Funny Girls, and got New Faces at Just For Laughs Montreal in 2015. She has since appeared in episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Adam Ruins Everything, and released a comedy album, “Hebrew School Dropout.” In 2021, she’s out with her first stand-up special, Burning Bush, filmed outside the Rose Bowl during the pandemic just weeks after she’d given birth to her first child. We talk all about that, how she managed to put together a new hour under quarantine, double standards for sexiness among comedians, and more. All roads lead to Rome, so let’s get to it!
Eric Andre may just be America’s, if not the world’s greatest prankster (with all due respect to Britain’s Sacha Baron Cohen and Canada’s Nathan Fielder). After first rising on the comedy scene as a stand-up, Andre first made waves in TV with appearances on Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23, 2 Broke Girls, and Man Seeking Woman. But it was his chaotic Adult Swim anti-talk show, The Eric Andre Show, that made his name in the business. Netflix released his debut comedy special, Legalize Everything, in 2020, and has followed up with Andre’s bonkers big-screen achievement, Bad Trip, which co-stars Tiffany Haddish and Lil Rel Howery as the three comedians act crazier than humanly possible in front of unsuspecting Americans up and down the East Coast. It’s both wild and wildly funny. Andre talked to me about the magic of improvising with complete strangers, the importance of showing Black comedians successfully pulling off pranks, and how Lil Rel’s traumatic first day of filming actually convinced Tiffany Haddish to join in on the fun. So let’s get to it!
Danny Jolles is a stand-up comedian best known for his role acting and singing as George on The CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. His other TV credits include Hulu’s Ramy, Comedy Central’s Corporate, Netflix’s Aunty Donna’s House, and Quibi’s Royalties. As a stand-up, Jolles was a New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs in 2017, and followed that up with a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Jolles filmed his first stand-up comedy special, Six Parts, in a variety of unusual locations, including a surf shop, hair salon, art gallery and a gym. We spoke about the making of that special and putting it out on YouTube for free, his younger days in online sketch comedy with the likes of Jack Quaid and Matt Rogers, the secret to booking national commercials, and the lasting impact of Adam Schlesinger and Kevin Barnett. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, RushTix provided special ticket offers to subscribers for live events including comedy shows, concerts, and theatrical productions in the San Francisco Bay Area. The lockdowns across America in March 2020 changed everything. Jill Bourque pivoted RushTix to become a provider solely of live-streaming comedy shows centered on allowing fans to interact with their favorite comedians. Other companies have similarly pivoted during the pandemic. Comedians Ben Gleib and Steve Hofstetter tried something different, creating the Nowhere Comedy Club (headquartered in the very specific somewhere of Gleib’s home) to replicate the live comedy club experience for fans anywhere and everywhere. As we mark one year of pandemic lockdowns, I spoke with both Bourque and Gleib about their separate efforts to keep comedy alive online, and where they see the industry going from here. So let’s get to it!
Christina Anthony is an East St. Louis native who came up through the Chicago comedy scene. Anthony joined The Second City, where she performed with e.t.c. and the touring company, and co-wrote three award-nominated sketch revues for the legendary comedy institution. But she almost never got the recognition she deserved in Chicago or Los Angeles, and was ready to hang up her acting career before responding to one last audition call. Her perseverance has paid off, as Anthony won the role of Aunt Denise on one episode of ABC’s black-ish, which led to a co-starring role as Dee-Dee on the spin-off sitcom, mixed-ish. Anthony sat down with me to talk about her path, not giving up on your dreams, and speaking up for a better, more inclusive comedy community. So let’s get to it!
Gary Anthony Williams has been improvising since the 1980s, when he was part of an Atlanta troupe called Laughing Matters. You’ve seen Williams on TV shows such as Boston Legal, where he played a crossdressing lawyer, or as Abe on Malcom in the Middle. He also co-starred on The Soul Man on TV Land, and provided voices for animated shows from The Boondocks, American Dad!, Doc McStuffins, and Bless The Harts. He currently co-stars on Netflix’s The Crew with Kevin James as the guy who makes the car go. Williams joined me to talk about his life and career, founding a short film festival during the digital boom, and whether the craziest improv he’s ever seen came while performing on Whose Line Is It Anyway? or while announcing The Eric Andre Show. So let’s get to it!
Dan Ahdoot is a stand-up comedian who has performed on The Tonight Show, and developed TV shows with FOX, CBS, NBC and Freeform. But Ahdoot is enjoying his greatest success now, with recurring roles on not one but two Netflix hit series — as a car salesman for “Karate Kid” Danny LaRusso in Cobra Kai, and as an engineer working for The Crew with Kevin James. That’s not quite what his parents had in mind when he was studying pre-med at Johns Hopkins, but it’s worked out quite OK. Ahdoot joined me to talk about working in the pandemic, his past experiences on series such as Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ and Kickin’ It, how far he’s come since Falafel Phil, and his own podcast, Green Eggs and Dan. So let’s get to it!
Identical twins Keith and Kenny Lucas were born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, separating only to attend different law schools at Duke and NYU. They reunited after both quit the law to pursue a comedy career together, with a stoner persona that eventually got them a Netflix special in 2017, The Lucas Bros On Drugs. They’ve also enjoyed writing and performing with the sketch group Friends of The People on truTV, and their animated series, Lucas Bros Moving Co., on FOX, as well as appearing in roles on 22 Jump Street, The Grinder, and Lady Dynamite. In 2021, you’re getting to see a more serious side from Keith and Kenneth, as they’ve completed a 10-year journey to bring the story of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton to the big screen in the film, Judas and the Black Messiah. The brothers joined me over Zoom to talk about working with their friends, how the death of Kevin Barnett impacted them, and what it means to not just be an armchair revolutionary. So let’s get to it!
A comedian, actor, and writer, Patton Oswalt has been making people laugh professionally since his late teens. He first became known to millions as Spence on the sitcom The King of Queens, and brought the alternative comedy scene to the screen thanks to The Comedians of Comedy tour, which begat a 2005 movie produced and distributed by Netflix, and a Comedy Central series. Since then, you’ve seen him on TV in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Justified, Veep, Happy, Veronica Mars, BoJack Horseman, Will and Grace, and on the big screen in Blade: Trinity, Big Fan, Young Adult and the voice of Ratatouille. He’s currently heard on ABC’s The Goldbergs, and Peacock’s A.P. Bio. Oswalt won both the Emmy and the Grammy for his 2016 stand-up special, Talking For Clapping, and received nominations again for his 2020 special, I Love Everything. Oswalt caught up with me via Zoom to talk about performing comedy virtually during the pandemic for RushTix, and walked with me down memory lane as we reminisced about adapting to the evolving technology during the digital comedy boom. So let’s get to it!
Erin Jackson had quite the 2020, starting it by performing on Late Night with Seth Meyers, and ending it by filming a set for Netflix as part of the second season of Tiffany Haddish Presents They Ready, alongside the likes of Tony Woods, Dean Edwards and Godfrey. Jackson came out of the D.C. comedy scene in the early 2000s, had Ellen DeGeneres encourage her to quit her day job, and previously appeared on two different seasons of Last Comic Standing, as well as Live at Gotham and CONAN. Jackson released her first comedy album, “Grudgery,” in 2018, and joined me over Zoom to talk about her life and career and developing a Netflix-ready set during the pandemic, so let’s get to it!
How are we supposed to make any sense out of this year in comedy, 2020? There’s only one way I know how…that’s by reuniting with Jason Zinoman of The New York Times, the Siskel to my Ebert in comedy criticism, to hash out 2020 and give some shout outs to the most valuable players in comedy…so let’s get to it!
Among those shouted out: Dave Chappelle, Conan O'Brien, Eddie Pepitone, Beth Stelling, Mike Birbiglia, Amber Ruffin, Amy Schumer, and Sarah Cooper and all of the other selfie stars who made us laugh on social media this year.
Michael Kosta is a Senior Correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Prior to The Daily Show, Michael co-created, produced and starred in the E! network’s The Comment Section, guest-hosted G4’s Attack of the Show and co-hosted Crowd Goes Wildon FOX Sports with Regis Philbin. He also served as a correspondent on The Soup spinoff series The Soup Investigates. Kosta has made the late-night rounds over the years from NBC to TBS and back to Comedy Central, and at the end of 2020 has released his first one-hour stand-up special for Comedy Central. Michael Kosta: Detroit. NY. LA includes material filmed in a theater in his native Michigan, as well as club sets at New York Comedy Club and the Hollywood Improv. Kosta joined me over Zoom to talk about making the move from tennis pro to stand-up comedian, lessons he’s learned along the way and more, so let’s get to it!
Kansas native Jeremiah Watkins trained at both The Second City and The Groundlings, and has become a fixture at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles as part of several trademark shows; among them, he was one-third of “The Wave” for Roast Battle as it developed and grew from late-night Tuesdays to multiple seasons on Comedy Central. He’s still the bandleader for Monday’s Kill Tony. And for more than a decade, Watkins has hosted an improvised riffing showcase there called Stand-Up On The Spot. You also may have seen and heard Watkins as the the saxophone-playing roadie for The Goddamn Comedy Jam. As a solo artist, he hosts his own podcast, Jeremiah Wonders, and was a New Face in Montreal’s Just For Laughs in 2018. At the end of 2020, Watkins has released his first stand-up special through Comedy Dynamics. “Family Reunion” really does bring it all back home quite literally for Watkins, as he filmed his special over the 2019 holidays with his family and friends in attendance at The Comedy Club of Kansas City. Watkins joined me in New York City to talk about the special, his career and more, so let’s get to it!
Colin Quinn seems to have his finger on the pulse of stand-up comedy and America just about as well, if not better, than almost any other comedian in America these days. His most recent solo stand-up special, 2019’s Red State Blue State, poked holes in how united Americans could be in this digital era where everyone’s opinions can carry equal weight, no matter how outlandishly crazy or off-base they might be. Quinn’s special even premiered on CNN, although it’s now on Netflix along with his previous two shows (Unconstitutional, and The New York Story). He followed that up with a book, “Overstated: A Coast-to-Coast Roast of the Fifty States” And when the COVID-19 pandemic began shutting down American businesses and comedy clubs with it in mid-March, Quinn not only predicted the near future for stand-up (performing for cars at drive-ins) but also got an HBO Max showcase for himself and his friends. It’s aptly-named Colin Quinn & Friends: A Parking Lot Comedy Show. I sat down with Quinn over Zoom this week to find out what else the comedian and former Saturday Night Live Weekend Update anchor can tell us about the state of comedy, SNL and America today, so let’s get to it!
Sam Reich was 21 when CollegeHumor hired him as its first Director of Original Content in 2006. In a few short years, the success of in-house webseries such as “Hardly Working” and “Jake and Amir” got Reich and CollegeHumor a sketch comedy show on MTV. While that show didn’t last, Reich helped executive produce, write or direct several others. Among them: Adam Ruins Everything for truTV, Hot Date for POP, and "Rhett and Link's Buddy System" on YouTube Red. In 2020, Reich acquired CollegeHumor from IAC, where he continues to oversee the making of original comedy videos for the channel’s 14 million subscribers on YouTube. He’s also CEO for Dropout, a subscription-based streaming platform he founded — its shows include Um Actually, Dimension 20, and the game show, Game Changer, which Reich himself hosts. It’s been a long, strange trip making comedy videos, and it’s not over yet for Reich, so let’s get to it!
Negin Farsad began her comedy career while advising campaign finance policies for the city of New York, and over the course of the 2010s, she has mixed social justice and comedy on stage and on the road. She made and performed in a road-trip documentary across America in 2012 called “The Muslims Are Coming!” She has delivered multiple TED Talks, one based on that documentary, and another on her book, “How To Make White People Laugh.” Since 2016, she has hosted a weekly podcast on the Earwolf network called “Fake the Nation,” and has become a regular on the NPR comedy quiz show, “Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!” She also has appeared on HBO’s High Maintenance, and written for Jena Friedman’s Adult Swim specials, Soft Focus. Farsad sat down with me to focus in on her own career and how she remains optimistic about comedy’s ability to positively influence public perceptions and policies. Even on the eve of the 2020 election. So let’s get to it!
Melinda Hill moved 27 times as a kid before making her biggest move from Kansas to Los Angeles to make it as an actress. She studied with The Groundlings, where she performed as a tooth fairy alongside Kristin Wiig. She starred in a Creed music video. She competed on America’s Got Talent. She performed on Adventure Time, Lady Dynamite, The Late Late Show, and Reno 911! She made a webseries for Funny or Die with Maria Bamford, and another one for My Damn Channel called Romantic Encounters. And for 10 years, she helped run a popular Monday night stand-up showcase in Hollywood called What’s Up Tiger Lily. This year, she performed in an upcoming movie with Diane Keaton and Jeremy Irons, started a podcast called Let’s Process This about creative people overcoming trauma, and turned her own personal trauma into comedy in her debut stand-up special, Inappropriate, out now via Comedy Dynamics. So let’s get to it!
J-L Cauvin is a native New Yorker who started his stand-up comedy career in Washington, D.C., while going to law school at Georgetown. His first big break came in 2007 when he performed on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, but J-L has found many more fans and followers thanks to his uncanny impersonations, whether they’re of people he has been told he looks like, which includes Barack Obama, Adam Sandler, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, or by lampooning other comedians such as Louis CK, JB Smoove, George Lopez, Gary Gulman, or Adam Carolla. J-L’s Carolla impersonation got the attention of Carolla himself, leading to multiple appearances on his top podcast in recent years. Since 2016, J-L has found his mockery mark in Donald Trump, releasing multiple videos and two “Fireside Craps” albums as Trump that have hit #1 on the iTunes comedy charts. At the start of the COVID-19 shutdown in March 2020, J-L released a video, “Donald Trump vs. God on Easter PPV” that went viral, with more than 2.5 million views so far. J-L caught up with me just prior to the 2020 elections to talk Trump, why he hasn’t done a Biden impersonation, and his own long and winding career, so let’s get to it!
So much has changed in the world since the last time I caught up with Lewis Black in September of 2016. But last things first, obviously: Black managed to film his last live show before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live stand-up comedy, recording his March 13, 2020, performance at Four Winds Casino in Michigan and releasing it in October 2020. It’s called, appropriately enough: “Thanks For Risking Your Life.” Black spoke with me over Zoom about the special, about his longtime support for the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY, and about America’s seeming lack of community in 2020, which prompted me to ask Black if his former boss, Jon Stewart, won the battle against CNN’s Crossfire but ultimately lost the war against cable news. So let’s get to it!
Adam Conover is a comedian and writer best known for the truTV series Adam Ruins Everything, which he created and hosted from 2015-2019. Conover’s comedy career began while still a student at Bard College, where he was part of the sketch comedy group, Olde English, along with future Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. Olde English performed at the HBO Aspen comedy festival in 2007, and in 2012, wrote and released the feature film, The Exquisite Corpse Project. Conover also began writing and making videos for College Humor, where his 2012 parody Mitt Romney Style has earned more than 64 million views and counting on YouTube. College Humor also helped give birth to Adam Ruins Everything. Conover sat down with me in Los Angeles in February 2020, just as he began his newest gig as host of the Nickelodeon game show, The Crystal Maze. We spoke about the heady early years of Internet comedy videos, and how Facebook and other factors brought it all crashing down, even before the COVID-19 pandemic took the comedy industry by storm. So let’s get to it!
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down everything in March of 2020, thousands upon thousands of comedians suddenly experienced the existential dilemma that comedian Mike Birbiglia had depicted in his 2016 movie, “Don’t Think Twice.” Birbiglia himself didn’t think twice, however, quickly starting a nationwide fundraising campaign called Tip Your Waitstaff, with proceeds going to the employees of comedy clubs suddenly shuttered for who knows how long. His conversations with other comedians has prompted Birbiglia to start his own podcast, Working It Out, in which he and other stand-ups riff on premises with hopes of turning them into full comedy routines. Birbiglia already has successfully mined his own life and observations into four one-man shows, Sleepwalk With Me, My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Thank God For Jokes, and The New One. The first he adapted into a feature film; the latter three he filmed for Netflix, and the newest one, so to speak, also is a new book that includes more poetry from his wife, J. Hope Stein. You may have heard him tell his stories on Ira Glass’s This American Life, or also recognize Birbigs from the movie Trainwreck or from his TV roles in Girls, Broad City, Orange is the New Black, and Billions. So let’s get to it!
Calise Hawkins is a stand-up comedian and writer based out of Jersey City, where she raises her daughter, Asha. You may have seen her stand-up on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (NBC), Russell Simmons Presents Live At The El Rey (Comedy Central), Stand Up in Stilettos (TV Guide Channel), and Nick Mom’s Night Out (Nickelodeon). She was a cast member of Oxygen's Funny Girls and has written for multiple shows on Comedy Central and the Disney Channel. Among them: Disney's Walk The Prank, Disney's Just Roll With It, Adult Swim's Soft Focus, Comedy Central’s @midnight, Comedy Central's Hood Adjacent, MTV’s Totally Clueless, Girl Code, Charlemagne’s Uncommon Sense. For her 40th birthday in 2020, she recorded and released her first comedy album, “Calise Hawkins is 40 AF.” Hawkins spoke with me over Zoom about helping other comedians in show business, learning to help herself, single motherhood, how Hollywood writers room experiences left her feeling insecure, and what she learned in the making and writing of Comedy Knockout on truTV. So let’s get to it!
Beth Stelling grew up in Ohio before moving to Chicago to study with the Steppenwolf Theatre, after which she began pursuing her career in stand-up comedy. She was named best stand-up in Chicago the year before she got New Faces at Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival, then moved to Los Angeles. She has released two comedy albums, “Sweet Beth” and “Simply the Beth,” performed on Conan and Jimmy Kimmel Live, and recorded half-hour specials for both Comedy Central and Netflix. More recently, Stelling also has found success behind the camera as a writer on series such as I Love You America with Sarah Silverman on Hulu, Crashing on HBO, and provided on-set punch-ups for the 2019 movie, Good Boys. That year, she also launched a podcast with her mother for Earwolf’s Stitcher Premium series called “We Called Your Mom.” Beth’s first hour stand-up special, produced by Team Coco, was filmed March 7, 2020, in Minneapolis — Beth Stelling: Girl Daddy premiered in August 2020 on HBO Max. I sat down with Stelling over Zoom to talk about all of that, as well as where the comedy industry may go from here in treating women and women of color better whenever we re-emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. So let’s get to it!
Joe List began his stand-up career in Boston in 2000 after graduating from high school, rising up the ranks in Boston’s heralded comedy scene before moving to New York City. He has toured with the likes of Louis CK and Nick DiPaolo, and since 2013 has co-hosted the popular podcast Tuesdays With Stories with comedian Mark Normand. List’s singular credits include performing on The Late Show with David Letterman, half-hours on Netflix and Comedy Central, and reaching the finals of the final season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. List has recorded two previous comedy albums, and his first solo hour special, “I Hate Myself,” premiered in August 2020 on Comedy Central’s YouTube Channel. It had earned more than a half a million views in its first week, which is when I sat down with him over Zoom to talk about his life and career. So let’s get to it!
The world knows Stephen Glover as Steve-O, a daredevil famous for his stunts with the Jackass crew on MTV, a spin-off series Wildboyz, and four Jackass movies. It’s landed him on Dancing with the Stars and a Comedy Central Roast. When I met Steve-O in 2010, he was newly clean and sober and pursuing a second life as a stand-up comedian. We reconnected in the summer of 2020 over Zoom in two separate conversations. We talked about getting mentored in comedy by Dane Cook, how he joined the ranks of touring stand-up comedians almost immediately because of his celebrity, and had to figure out how to give everything he had to make it work. We also discuss the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Clown College (he studied there, while I didn’t get accepted), his relationship with his father, and his new comedy special, Gnarly, which is available now through his website at steveo.com. So let’s get to it!
Sebastian Maniscalco met Pat McGann in the early 2010s, when Mansicalco was headlining Zanies in Chicago and McGann was the house MC. They eventually became friends and working partners, with McGann warming up the audience for Maniscalco’s Showtime special which taped in Chicago, and then traveling with Sebastian on the road for the past several years as his opener or feature act. All while Maniscalco’s star rose to include arenas such as Madison Square Garden and roles in major motion pictures. In July 2020, Sebastian paid it forward for McGann, executive producing and introducing McGann for his first solo hour: Sebastian Maniscalco Presents Pat McGann: When’s Mom Gonna Be Home? It’s available for rent or purchase online now. Sebastian and Pat sat down with me on Zoom to talk about the working relationships between headliners and features, and how their own career paths came together. So let’s get to it!
Discussions of racial representation and onscreen depiction of the police both hit home for Carlos Alazraqui. Born to Argentinian parents, Carlos has spent the most time onscreen as Deputy James Garcia on Reno 911!, which aired from 2003 to 2009 on Comedy Central, spawned a movie in 2007 and has returned to mobile phones courtesy of Quibi in 2020. You may recognize his voice from a multitude of animated toons over the past three decades, starting with Rocko’s Modern Life on Nickelodeon and including Family Guy, The Fairly OddParents, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Camp Lazio and many many more. He won the San Francisco Comedy Competition in 1993, defeating fellow finalists Marc Maron and Patton Oswalt, and gained even more notoriety in the 1990s for voicing the chihuahua in Taco Bell’s radio and TV commercials. We talk about all of that, plus how he continues working during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how he navigates debates about race and culture. So let’s get to it!
Jamie Kennedy still may be best known for playing Randy Meeks in the big-screen Scream franchise, but Kennedy has enjoyed a wild and varied acting career since he broke out of background work in the late 1980s. His credits include Romeo + Juliet, Bowfinger, Enemy of the State, As Good As It Gets, Three Kings, and his own vehicle, Malibu’s Most Wanted. On the small screen, he recurred on both the drama Ghost Whisperer and the animated toon, The Cleveland Show, but created and starred in his own sketch/reality show for the WB, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. Kennedy celebrated turning 50 in May by releasing his newest stand-up special, “Stoopid Smart,” via Tubi. You also can see him this summer on Pluto TV hosting the latest season of Comedy Dynamics’ stand-up showcase series, Coming To The Stage. I spoke with Kennedy in June, so some circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide protests may have changed since then, but the facts of Kennedy’s career remain the same. So let’s get to it!
Smosh became the first popular YouTube channel in 2005 and has remained among the most popular channels on YouTube ever since. It would take almost 15 years, however, before Smosh followed other YouTubers by embarking on its first live tour in February 2020, which ended just as the coronavirus pandemic was sweeping the globe. As of June 2020, Smosh had earned more than 25 million subscribers to the main comedy channel, plus another 7 and a half million for Smosh Games, and another 7 million for Smosh Pit. Over the first 15 years, they created mobile apps and games, made a feature film in 2015 and another movie specifically for YouTube’s premium customers, and lost a co-founder along the way. Co-founder Ian Hecox sat down with me over Zoom to talk about it all, from the humble beginnings in flash animation on Smosh.com to now working alongside and for fellow first-generation YouTubers Rhett & Link, and more, so let’s get to it!
Greg Warren grew up in St. Louis the son of a wrestling coach, and enjoyed a successful high-school and college wrestling career himself before he discovered stand-up comedy while still a student at the University of Missouri. Neither stints at West Point or Proctor & Gamble could sway Warren as much as stand-up has, a career he has pursued, consistently touring comedy clubs on the road for the past 20 years. His “Flute Man” bit ranks as one of the most requested bits in the history of the Bob & Tom Show on syndicated radio. Warren has performed on late-night TV, put out a half hour Comedy Central Presents, and recorded albums and specials for SiriusXM and Dry Bar Comedy. After using Los Angeles and New York City as bases while working the road, Warren moved back to St. Louis, and last summer, recorded a new hour special across the Mississippi River in Illinois. “Where The Field Corn Grows” comes out in June 2020 as both an album and a video special via 800 Pound Gorilla Records, and Warren joined me over Zoom to talk about his new special and more. So let’s get to it!
Ramy Youssef is the son of Egyptian immigrants, growing up in New York and New Jersey, who jumped into sketch comedy as a teenager. It paid off for him initially with a role on the Nick at Nite sitcom See Dad Run. Youssef took what he learned there, as well as his work on shows such as Mr. Robot, and friendships with the likes of truTV’s Friends of the People and NBC’s The Carmichael Show, and applied it to his own show, Ramy, which premiered on Hulu in 2019. Youssef won the Golden Globe in 2020 for best actor in a comedy series for portraying a young Muslim in New Jersey trying and often failing to do the right thing. Ramy and I spoke over Zoom about celebrating Ramadan in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how he and we might wonder how to do the right thing in real life, even when we’re unsure what the right thing might be. So let’s get to it!
Rhys Darby is an actor, writer, podcaster and stand-up comedian from New Zealand. North American audiences first got to know him as Murray the manager from HBO’s Flight of the Conchords and more recently as Nigel the guide in the Jumanji movies. His other film and TV credits include Yes Man, The X-Files, Wrecked, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople. His sound-effect skills and voiceover work can be heard in such projects as Voltron: Legendary Defender, as well as his four previous stand-up specials. A fifth special, Mystic Time Bird, is due out in 2020. Also new from Darby: a Spotify podcast about aliens, called “Aliens Like Us.” Darby caught up with me via Zoom from New Zealand, so let’s get to it!
When I sat down with Fred Willard in February 2020 inside his home in Southern California, he was noticeably weak — I held his microphone for him throughout our conversation — but his mind and his sense of humor was quite intact, and he was still working. In fact, Fred received a phone call during our interview inviting him to the Modern Family wrap party, and talked to me about being ready and willing to drive into Hollywood with only a morning’s notice to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Willard was a deadpan king of comedy and an improvisational genius in all sorts of supporting roles in television and movies from the 1960s until his final days. We spoke about all of it over the course of an hour, from how he got involved with The Second City and Ace Trucking Company, to Fernwood 2 Night and Real People, hosting Saturday Night Live in 1978, meeting Christopher Guest and his memorable roles in This Is Spinal Tap, For Your Consideration, and of course, Best in Show. He had a funny story about how he scored a role in Everybody Loves Raymond. Willard also talked about what would be his last venture, playing Steve Carell’s father in the new Netflix farce, Space Force. Willard died peacefully at home on May 15, 2020. He was 86. He was the only live-action actor in a Pixar animated movie in WALL-E, perhaps because he always animated every project he worked on. Fred Willard most certainly will be missed. But let him tell you why in his own words, so let’s get to it!
Josh Thomas is an Australian comedian, actor and writer who broke out on the scene as a teenager, winning best newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2007 for his first solo show, “Please Like Me.” Thomas went on to stage his stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe and Montreal’s Just For Laughs before developing his first TV series, also called “Please Like Me,” which documented his coming-out process and aired originally on Australian TV before getting picked up for multiple seasons in America via the Pivot cable channel. His follow-up to that, “Everything’s Gonna Be OK,” premiered in January 2020 on Freeform. The first season in full is available for streaming on Hulu. Thomas sat down with me via Zoom to talk about all of that, why working with bugs and teenage girls makes perfect sense, and more, so let’s get to it!
Over the past 25 years, Judy Gold has starred in her own half-hour stand-up specials for HBO, Comedy Central and LOGO, has won two Emmy Awards for writing for The Rosie O’Donnell Show, and appeared on numerous daytime and late-night talk shows. Gold has written and starred in two Off-Broadway solo shows: The Judy Show – My Life as a Sitcom, and 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother. Her recent TV credits include Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here and FX’s Better Things. She has performed in New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park, portrayed Linda Tripp in Clinton! The Musical, and had gotten cast in her first Broadway production for fall 2020 before the coronavirus pandemic shut that down. At least she still has a new book ready to come out in July 2020, “Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians We Are All in Trouble,” as well as her own podcast: “Kill Me Now.” Fortunately she’s still alive and well and willing to talk to me during quarantine over Zoom — so let’s get to it!
Dan Whitney had a pretty good comedy career, including a TV appearance on A&E’s An Evening At The Improv. But Whitney’s career as Larry the Cable Guy has been far more lucrative and longer-lasting, going on some three decades since he first started calling into radio stations as the character who still says, Git-R-Done! Larry became the breakout star from the Blue Collar Comedy Tour and its subsequent TV series, becoming the top Billboard comedy artist and touring act of the mid-2000s. He got his own Comedy Central Roast in 2009, hosted three Christmas specials for VH1 and CMT, starred in four movies as Larry, voiced a tow truck in the two animated hit Cars movies for Disney/Pixar, and hosted a History Channel show for three seasons. He continues to co-host a SiriusXM comedy channel on satellite radio with his comedy pal Jeff Foxworthy, and they put out a joint Netflix special together. He and his wife also have run the nonprofit Git-R-Done Foundation since 2009 to benefit childrens’ and veterans causes. Dan sat down with me from his kitchen in Nebraska to talk over Zoom about all of that and more, including his newest solo stand-up special, Remain Seated. So let’s get to it!
Maysoon Zayid is an actress, comedian, and disability advocate, who has attracted more than 16 million views to her 2013 TED talk, “I Got 99 problems…palsy is just one.” A decade before that, Zayid co-founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. Her past credits include contributing to MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, appearing in the Adam Sandler movie, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, and headlining the Arabs Gone Wild comedy tour. In 2019, she recorded an Audible original audiobook, “Find Another Dream,” and she recently fulfilled her lifelong dream by landing a gig as a recurring character on the longtime ABC soap opera, General Hospital. She connected with me via Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic to check in, so let’s get to it!
Lane Mooreis a comedian, writer, actor, and musician. She hosts the show Tinder Live, swiping through dating profiles and baiting potential suitors, with a panel of funny people and a live audience to guide her. She also fronts the band, It Was Romance. And as a writer, Lane Moore has published jokes in The Onion, and offered sex and relationship advice as an editor for Cosmopolitan magazine, where she won a GLAAD award for expanding the magazine’s queer coverage. In 2018, Moore released her first book of personal essays, “How To Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t.” I sat down with Moore for a conversation over our respective laptops during the first month of the coronavirus quarantine to talk about her life and career, how we’re adapting to a world without traditional comedy stages, and what it’s like for many millions of us to suddenly learn how to be alone. So let’s get to it!
Comedic actorsJonathan Braylock, Jerah Milligan and James III host their own podcast,Black Men Can’t Jump(In Hollywood), examining the problems of racial diversity in show business through reviewing movies of the past which featured actors of color. They also have firsthand experience with the topic. In 2014, they became part of the first all-black house team at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. Their comedy troupe, Astronomy Club, was named one of Comedy Central’s Comics to Watch in 2016, and produced a digital sketch series for Comedy Central in 2018. In December 2019, Astronomy Club debuted a six-episode series on Netflix with executive producer Kenya Barris and showrunner Daniel Powell. I sat down with Jonathan, Jerah and James in North Hollywood in February 2020, back when they still thought they were participating in a regular “pilot season,” to talk about how some things had changed while others hadn’t. So let’s get to it!
Tammy Pescatelli lost her agent and manager back in 2016 after she spoke out about joke stealing and parallel thinking, but that’s not the first time in her career that Pescatelli did something her reps disapproved of — years earlier, Pescatelli continued performing in comedy clubs and theaters while more than eight moths pregnant, long before it became popular for women in comedy to do so. But Pescatelli is a funny woman of a certain age — she competed on seasons 2 and 3 of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and after the birth of her son, she starred in her own reality series on WE tv called A Stand Up Mother. Since then, she has featured in Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Sexy Funny special for EPIX, and formerly co-hosted Stuttering John’s Podcast. In March of 2020, Pescatelli has two new specials available for streaming or purchase. She’s part of Showtime’s MORE FUNNY WOMEN OF A CERTAIN AGE – headlined by Caroline Rhea and also featuring Carol Leifer, Carole Montgomery, Julia Scotti, and Thea Vidale. Pescatelli also stars in her own hourlong stand-up, The Way After School Special, filmed at her old high-school gym in Ohio. Tammy and I get into it, so let’s get to it!
Justine Marino is a comedian who joined The Groundlings shortly after moving from Denver to Los Angeles, and found herself working as a tour guide at Universal Studios while also performing stand-up at night. Her first big break came in the Jenny McCarthy comedy special, “Dirty, Sexy, Funny” which came out on EPIX in 2014 and also featured a then-unknown Tiffany Haddish. Later that year, Marino got New Faces at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Comedy festival. More recently, she developed a live comedy dance competition with Heidi Heaslet at The Comedy Store called Stand Up 2 The Streets, which has been developed into a TV series for E!. The Funny Dance Show debuts in March 2020 on E! I sat down with Marino in Los Angeles to chart all of her comedy and dance steps, so let’s get to it!
Born in Taiwan to Taiwanese and Japanese parents, Atsuko Okatsuka is a stand-up comedian, actress and writer. Since putting out her first hour comedy special in 2018 as part of Hulu’s Comedy InvAsian series, she has made the shortlists of comedians to watch by both New York Magazine’s Vulture site as well as Time Out LA. Atsuko also has written for two different series on Adult Swim, The Eric Andre Show and Soft Focus with Jena Friedman. She’s the creator and host of “Let’s Go, Atsuko!” a woke Japanese game show that’s a hit with live audiences as well as a podcast, and she’s developing it as a potential TV or streaming vehicle, too. Atsuko released a new stand-up album in 2020, “But I Control Me,” via Comedy Dynamics. She sat down with me in her Los Angeles home to talk about making it in America as an immigrant, twerking with her grandmother, and so much more. So let’s get to it!
In 2020, Tom Papa released his fourth stand-up comedy special, and first for Netflix, called You’re Doing Great!. And Tom Papa is doing great. He’s a regular performer on NPR, starring in his own segment on the weekly syndicated show, Live From Here, as well as a recurring role on the panel for NPR quiz show, Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! He also has a weekly SiriusXM show and podcast featuring his funny friends called Come To Papa. That’s not to be confused with the NBC sitcom he once starred in called Come To Papa, or his former NBC reality show with Jerry Seinfeld called The Marriage Ref. Or Papa’s current weekday SiriusXM talk show he co-hosts with Fortune Feimster for the Netflix is A Joke radio channel, What a Joke with Papa and Fortune. Did I mention Papa’s bread-baking show for the Food Network, or his books? His second book, You're Doing Great!: And Other Reasons to Stay Alive, is available for pre-orders and more online now. Papa sat down with me at SiriusXM’s Los Angeles offices to break it all down, and build us all up. So let’s get to it!
Lizz Winstead is a Minnesotan through and through, even though she has spent the better part of the past three decades in New York City. Winstead first moved to New York to pursue her stand-up comedy career, became a segment producer for The Jon Stewart Show in 1995, and while that talk show ultimately didn’t last long, Winstead found herself getting offered her dream gig by Comedy Central a year later. That gig? Co-creating The Daily Show. She later pivoted to radio, serving as the original program director for Air America Radio, where the 2004 lineup included Marc Maron in the morning, Janeane Garofalo at night, and Al Franken at midday — Winstead, meanwhile, co-hosted a show from 9 to noon with Public Enemy’s Chuck D.. and a previously unknown radio host from Massachusetts named Rachel Maddow. Since then, Winstead has mounted a live parody of morning TV, written a book of essays called “Lizz Free or Die,” and came out of that process realizing she could be even more activist in her comedy. Her book tour begat a new organization, first called Lady Parts Justice League and now known as Abortion Access Front, or Abortion AF for short. Winstead is currently touring towns and cities across America with her Feminist Buzzkills of Comedy Tour. I caught up with her during a break between tour stops, so let’s get to it!
Derek Gaines grew up outside of Philadelphia, and moved to New York City with his “6 Foot Nothing” crew after cementing his status as one of Philly’s Phunniest. After performing as a New Face in Montreal at Just For Laughs, Gaines began scoring TV credits, hosting MTV’s Broke A$$ Game Show and delivering jokes on cable outlets from truTV to VH1 to AXS-TV. Since 2017, Gaines has steadily appeared in higher-profile roles and series, starting with the revival of Will & Grace on NBC, where he plays Sean Hayes’s boss, and also including The Last O.G. with Tracy Morgan on TBS. In 2020, you can see Gaines on the big-screen in his former roommate Pete Davidson’s movie, “The King of Staten Island,” and you can hear Gaines on his first comedy album, Fuccboi Ground Zero. Gaines sat down with me to talk all about it, so let’s get to it!
David Wain has been on the cutting edge of digital comedy since the turn of the century, making short films for his live comedy shows with Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, debuting a webseries (Wainy Days) on the streaming platform My Damn Channel in 2007, helping Rob Corddry take his webseries Childrens Hospital to TV with Adult Swim and winning multiple Emmys for it, and adapting his first feature film, 2001’s Wet Hot American Summer, into two separate spin-off series (a prequel and a sequel) for Netflix. He’s directed multiple feature films amid all of that, including The Ten, Role Models, Wanderlust, They Came Together, and A Futile and Stupid Gesture. His most recent trick he pulled off? Getting the funny folks of Childrens Hospital out of the hospital and around the world on an action-adventure caper called Medical Police. The ten-episode season debuted in January 2020 on Netflix. I sat down with Wain before the series premiered to find out how he has adapted to all of the ways TV has changed in the 21st Century. So let’s get to it!
Joe Pera is a Buffalo native who studied film and began his stand-up comedy career at Ithaca College. After college, Pera moved to New York City, where he started a regular showcase with his childhood friend Dan Licata and Charles Gould called the Dan, Joe and Charles Show. Pera’s comedy voice made the leap to late-night TV in 2016 with the animated Adult Swim infomercial, “Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep.” Adult Swim liked it so much they’ve kept bringing Pera back, first with the Christmas special, “Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree,” and two seasons of “Joe Pera Talks with You.” You also may have seen Pera on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or Late Night with Seth Meyers. I sat down with Pera in a diner near his Brooklyn apartment to talk about his life and career, and what may come next. So let’s get to it!
In an email to me on Jan. 3, 2020, Chloé Hilliard proclaimed “This is the YEAR of CHLOE!” and she may well be right. Hilliard already kicked off 2020 by releasing her first stand-up comedy album, “Big Dick Energy,” and has followed that up with the publication of her first book, “F— YOUR DIET: And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me,” from Simon & Schuster. Hilliard, whose TV credits include The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Last Comic Standing, tells me about her previous life as a culture and entertainment journalist for for Essence, Vibe, and The Source, how she decided to make a break for it as a comedian instead, and why she wanted to write about society’s relationship with food, and what it means for us. So let’s get to it!
As we put a bow on 2019, it’s time once again for me to sit down with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman to look back on the year’s best and brightest moments in comedy, and which comedians brought out the best. We couldn’t help but discuss cancel culture, and whom that actually applied to this year. We also talked up the big years for Sebastian Maniscalco and Tiffany Haddish, the greatness of Gary Gulman and Anthony Jeselnik, and breakthroughs for Jacqueline Novak, Ronny Chieng and Ramy Youssef. We noted big years for Amy Schumer, Nikki Glaser and Julio Torres. We debated the relative greatness of Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle. We noted the other ways comedians made themselves noticed, whether they were clowns in real life, or amusing us via Instagram and Twitter. And we paused to reflect on how Joe Rogan became the biggest talk show host around. All that and more marked the year in comedy of 2019. So let’s get to it!
Becky Robinson grew up in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, and studied business at San Diego State University before she threw her everything into show business. A video she made of a McDonald’s wedding proposal gone awry went viral in the summer of 2015, leading her to multiple gigs, first going undercover as an on-the-street correspondent for Funny or Die, then as herself showing off her freestyle rapping chops on MTV’s Wild N’ Out with Nick Cannon. In 2018, Robinson went to Montreal to showcase with other New Faces in the Characters category, while also developing her own potential sketch comedy series with E! Comedy Central sent her to Comic-Con 2019 in character as techie Alan Gingrich. Now she’s shopping her potential TV series to other networks, while also showing off her range in her first headlining tour, called Snow Circus. She sat down with me as herself in New York City just before her tour launched at Gotham Comedy Club, so let’s get to it!
Abby McEnany stars as a fictionalized version of herself in the new Showtime series Work In Progress. On Showtime, Abby is a 45-year-old overweight queer dyke from Chicago who plans to commit suicide in 180 days if her live doesn’t get any better. Can she become a work in progress before it’s too late? In real life, McEnany is still queer and based in the Windy City, but a little bit older and happier, thanks in part to her longtime involvement in Chicago’s improv comedy community — she’s been a mainstay of improv Olympic’s weekly improv group Virgin Daiquiri for the past decade. That group’s alums include SNL stars Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong. McEnany created Work In Progress with another Chicago improviser, Tim Mason, and they independently filmed the pilot, premiering it in January 2019 at Sundance. Showtime picked it up to series, and Lilly Wachowski came on board as a co-writer and showrunner. Abby walks me through all of those progressions, both personal and professional, so let’s get to it!
Jeff Garlin is a comedian and actor who honed his chops in the 1980s with The Second City, alongside the likes of Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris. You know him from playing Larry David’s friend Jeff Greene on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well as playing the patriarch of the ABC sitcom family, The Goldbergs. You’ve heard his voice in such Pixar classics as Wall-E and Toy Story 3 and 4, and he has written and directed three feature films: I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, Dealin’ With Idiots, and Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie. Garlin goes even deeper into his movie credits during his 2019 Netflix comedy special: Our Man In Chicago. But as he’ll tell you then and now, nothing is more fun than making it up as we go along, so let’s get to it!
Erik Rivera got heavily involved in comedy in the wake of 9/11 while studying at Pace University just blocks away from the World Trade Center. Rivera’s TV credits include performing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Last Comic Standing, his own hour special, “I’m No Expert,” as well as a season of reality TV with his wife on Oxygen, “Living With Funny.” In November 2019, Rivera stars in his own HBO half-hour special, “Super White.” He worked with Eva Longoria years ago trying to develop his life into a half-hour sitcom, and as he has Longoria still in his corner for another development deal in the making, Rivera sat down with me in his home in Burbank to talk about where his life and career have taken him, and might take him still. So let’s get to it!
Elliott Morgan is one of the members of The Valleyfolk, a crowd-funded Internet comedy troupe that won the inaugural season of NBC’s Bring The Funny in the summer of 2019, winning $250,000 and an invitation to perform at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. That’s a long way from central Florida, where Morgan grew up and got married at a young age. Morgan grew up in comedy online thanks to a gig as one of the original members of SourceFed, a Google-funded YouTube channel that had more than 1.6 million subscribers when it stopped making videos in 2017. He talks to me about all of that, plus working on Hollywood Boulevard as a costumed character, releasing an early stand-up special on Vimeo, working with historic YouTube accounts and what it means to be a YouTuber now, and joking through his failed marriage on his second stand-up special, “Holy Shit,” which he released in October 2019 via Comedy Dynamics. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Celeste Barber had appeared on Australian television as a regular on the hospital soap opera All Saints in the late 2000s, but that wasn’t translating into fans or followers on social media. Then Barber decided she’d have fun re-creating the outrageous photo shoots of celebrities and models, and posted her results on Instagram with the hashtag #CelesteChallengeAccepted. Eight months after she took on that challenge in 2015, her hashtag and her Instagram account went viral. Fast forward to 2019, and Barber has published two books (one nonfiction and one for children), toured the US with a stage act, gained more than 6.1 million Instagram followers, and now filmed and released her first comedy special for Showtime, Celeste Barber: Challenge Accepted. I caught up with Celeste in Showtime’s offices in New York City, so let’s get to it!
Matt Besser is known as one of the co-founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade, which began as a sketch comedy group in Chicago, moved to New York City, got a TV series on Comedy Central, and opened up theaters and schools teaching improv and sketch comedy in both New York and Los Angeles. Besser also created and starred in a second Comedy Central series, the parody debate show, Crossballs, and over the years has performed as a guest star in sitcoms such as Fresh Off The Boat, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, and Community. But Besser’s stand-up career predates his association with the UCB. He has four stand-up comedy albums out, including the audio version of his first solo comedy special, 2016’s “Besser Breaks The Record.” His second stand-up special, “Pot Humor,” was filmed for Comedy Dynamics in a cannabis club in Portland, Ore., full of stoners, including Besser. You can hear Besser hosting his popular improvised comedy podcast for Earwolf, called Improv4Humans, and still find him every weekend at the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles performing the theater’s signature ASSSSCAT shows. That’s where I caught up with Besser recently. We had a lively discussion about changing attitudes toward both pot and improv over the course of our lifetimes, the highs and lows of both. So let’s get to it!
Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe are an award-winning writing and directing team based in Los Angeles. They became friends and collaborators while performing together in New York City on an Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre sketch team called Onassis. They formed Gulp Splash Productions in 2015. Since then, they have written and produced three short films, which have appeared in more than 70 film festivals worldwide. They’ve also directed two episodes of Adam Ruins Everything for truTV. But it’s their first feature, “Greener Grass,” that has everyone talking. What began as their first short film, directed then by Paul Briganti, premiered at SXSW in 2016, where it won festival awards and begat a TV deal with IFC. DeBoer and Luebbe ended up turning Greener Grass into their own calling card, directing the feature film adaptation, which premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and got bought by IFC Midnight. In the film, they co-star as best friends, or are they frenemies, in a surreal suburban community where everyone drives golf carts and wishes they had what their neighbors have. It co-stars Beck Bennett, Neil Casey, Mary Holland and D’Arcy Carden, and opens in movie theaters and On Demand in October 2019. I sat down with the filmmakers in Hollywood, so let’s get to it!
Josh Gondelman is a writer and comedian who currently writes and produces comedy for Desus and Meroon Showtime. Before that, Gondelman spent five years at HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,earning multiple Emmys and other awards for his work on the writing staff. Much before that, before his comedy career took off, he taught preschool in the Boston area. As a performer, you’ve seen him tell jokes on Conan, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and Late Night With Seth Meyers, or heard him on one of his three comedy albums. As a writer, his work also has appeared in McSweeney’s, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, the Modern Seinfeld parody Twitter account, and more. His book of essays, “Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results,” is out now. So let’s get to it!
Jim and Jeannie Gaffigan have survived and thrived in ways they couldn’t have imagined when they pulled the plug on their TV Land series in the summer of 2016. Within months, Jeannie was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor, and the couple, who have five young children, wondered what would happen next. Jeannie writes about all of that in her new book, “When Life Gives You Pears: The Healing Power of Family, Faith, and Funny People.” Jim, meanwhile, was nominated for Grammy Awards in both 2018 and 2019. And in August 2019, Gaffigan became the first stand-up comedian to launch a special with Amazon Prime Video as an Amazon Original with “Quality Time.” Jim and Jeannie gave me some quality time in their New York City apartment to talk about everything they’ve been through together, so let’s get to it!
Evan Shapiro had run cable TV stations IFC, Sundance Channel, and Pivot before he launched Seeso, a streaming comedy service owned by Comcast and NBCUniversal in 2016. Shapiro went independent for a couple of years after that, but in May 2019, he took the reins as president of the National Lampoon, where he’s in charge of all development, acquisitions, and production on television, digital and audio content for the entertainment company. Shapiro helped rebrand the Independent Film Channel as a home for celebrated comedy in IFC, and brought podcasters to TV with Comedy Bang! Bang! and Maron. What can he do to revitalize the National Lampoon brand? He’s already working with the Forever Dog podcast network to develop some of their shows for TV. Shapiro, who also teaches TV at NYU, invited me to his unconventional offices at Soho House to give us a crash course in what’s happening with comedy these days. So let’s get to it!
Quinta Brunson took classes at The Second City in Chicago and Los Angeles and was performing with iOWest when she first found success not onstage but online, thanks to a 2013 Tumblr video, followed by a series of shorts she made for Instagram known as “He Got Money” or “The Girl Who’s Never Been on a Nice Date.” A gig with Buzzfeed followed suit, where she developed, wrote and starred in series for Facebook Watch, YouTube and Go90. Brunson has appeared on shows on ABC, The CW and Comedy Central, writes and provides a voice on Adult Swim’s Lazor Wulf, and had a deal to develop a sitcom for CBS with Jermaine Fowler and Larry Wilmore in 2018. That fell through, but in doing so, opened the door for Brunson to join the cast of HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show. Brunson sat down with me to talk about the first season on HBO and what’s to come. So let’s get to it!
Julio Torres described himself as a Space Prince before casting himself as a Chocolate Prince in the surreal bilingual TV series, Los Espookys, which he co-created, co-wrote and co-stars in for HBO. Originally from El Salvador, Torres first moved to New York City to study at The New School. After his funny friends helped him with his immigration process, he joined the most American of comedy institutions, Saturday Night Live, as a writer, known for his distinctive short films that have filled us in on “Wells For Boys,” the font Papyrus, and the inner thoughts of a sink. Torres animates even more objects in his first solo comedy special, “My Favorite Shapes,” which premieres on HBO in August 2019. I had only a few minutes of alone time with Julio at HBO headquarters, so let’s get to it!
After performing a half-hour stand-up special on Comedy Central and writing a book on depression, what came next for comedian Jacqueline Novak would bring her to her knees. So to speak. The actress Natasha Lyonne has presented Novak in her first Off-Broadway show, “Get On Your Knees,” currently enjoying a limited run in the summer of 2019 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village. It’s billed as “the most high-brow show about blow jobs you’ll ever see,” and it’s directed by the comedian and actor John Early, who also cast Novak in his own Netflix special. I sat down with Jacqueline at the Cherry Lane before one of her shows to talk about her place in the Georgetown University comedy community (which includes her show’s executive producer, Mike Birbiglia, her producer Mike Lavoie, as well Nick Kroll and John Mulaney) and how I hope to see her film and distribute “Get On Your Knees” to schools across America. So let’s get to it!
Brent Weinbach is an innovative and weird stand-up comedian, befitting of someone who won the Andy Kaufman Award in 2007. Since then, he has masterminded hit YouTube videos such as “Gangster Party Line,” “Man Gives Birth” and “Ultimate Drumming Technique.” With DJ Douggpound, Weinbach co-created and directed the Streamy-nominated web series, “Pound House.” Weinbach also has appeared on multiple episodes of IFC’s “Comedy Bang! Bang!” and Comedy Central’s “Another Period.” Even mainstream audiences have gotten to experience Weinbach courtesy of his stand-up sets on Conan, Lopez Tonight and The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. His stand-up special "Appealing to the Mainstream" originally debuted on Seeso in 2017 and is now available on Amazon Prime. He also regularly headlines a show called Brent Weinbach and Friends at the Hollywood Improv, which is where I caught up with him in 2019. So let’s get to it!
Marina Franklin is a Chicago native who has called Harlem home long enough to see her New York City neighborhood gentrify around her. She also has traveled the world as a comedian, performing in festivals from Melbourne to Montreal, from Kilkenny to Bonnaroo. Franklin’s onscreen credits include appearances on Chappelle’s Show, The Jim Gaffigan Show, Crashing, Louie, and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, as well as performances on The Awkward Comedy Show and Showtime’s Women Who Kill. Her podcast, Friends Like Us, features female comedians of color talking about the topics of the day. And she has a friend in Conan and Team Coco, who have featured her on TV, on tour, and showcased the trailer to her first solo stand-up special, “Single Black Female,” which comes out in July 2019 via the Comedy Dynamics Network. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get to it!
With degrees in English and Theater, Catherine Cohen not only graduated from Princeton University but also delivered a humorous speech at her own graduation. Five years later, Cohen became one of New York City’s newest It Girls, bringing the cabaret community back into the mainstream of comedy. She’s all over magazines such as Interview and GQ. Onscreen, you’ve already seen her in the finale of Comedy Central’s Broad City, as well an episode of HBO’s High Maintenance. Sh’ll soon appear on the big screen in the movie, Lovebirds. And all the while, Cohen holds court in the East Village with Henry Koperski as her accompanist on piano, weekly at Alan Cumming’s Club Cumming, and monthly at Joe’s Pub. In August 2019 she’s taking her show to the UK for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “The Twist...? She's Gorgeous.” We caught up with her in San Francisco in June, where Cohen performed on several shows as part of Comedy Central’s Clusterfest. After our chat, we’ll listen to her first breakout song with Koperski, “Look at Me.” So let’s get to it!
Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle met in college and became fast friends and comedy partners. But they did not take the typical path from Harvard to Hollywood. Their scenic route through show business included making their own videos before YouTube, to web series for a shuttered HBO website, to writing for Comedy Central’s Chocolate News, and eventually to joining the original Late Night writing staff for Jimmy Fallon — where they birthed successful bits such as Slow Jam The News. When they left Fallon, they found individual success — Bashir in GLOW and the upcoming Top Gun sequel, Diallo in the sitcom Marlon — and together wrote for the variety series Maya & Marty. In July 2019, Bashir and Diallo have not one but two new comedy series premiering — the sitcom South Side on Comedy Central, and the variety spoof Sherman’s Showcase on IFC. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Michelle Collins has that gift for gab that translates hilariously well both as a stand-up comedian and as a talk-show host. Collins co-starred for one season on ABC’s The View, and has gone on to host several after-shows for reality series. Among them: ABC's After Paradise, TLC's 90 Day Live: A 90 Day Fiance Fan Aftershow, and Lifetime's Little Talk Live. She can currently be heard hosting her very own morning show, The Michelle Collins Show, live weekday mornings on SiriusXM satellite radio. And she has a live stage show, “Strong Monster,” in which she recounts her life as well as the latest musings from the world of pop culture, via stories, slides and songs. She’s taking that show from New York City to London in July 2019. But first, she sat down with me to talk about her journey from Miami to Best Week Ever and beyond, so let’s get to it!
Connor Ratliff can be seen twice a week performing live at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City with two of its most prestigious improv groups — The Stepfathers on Friday nights, and ASSSCAT 3000 on Sunday nights. He also served as the warm-up comedian and erstwhile presidential candidate from The Chris Gethard Show on public access as well as cable TV, and stars in a Comedy Central web series, Dollar Store Therapist. You more likely recognize him from scene-stealing work in critically acclaimed TV series such as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Orange is the New Black or Search Party. Ratliff also created and stars in a long-running UCB staple called The George Lucas Talk Show, where he interviews real comedians and celebrities while pretending to be the Star Wars creator. A documentary film crew is currently capturing what makes that work, and Ratliff took a moment to sit down with me to talk all about it, and the ups and downs of his comedy career. So let’s get to it!
The daughter of a Swiss mother and Pakistani father, Sabrina Jalees is a Canadian by birth who became famous in her native land by starring or hosting in several TV and radio shows north of the border. After immigrating to the U.S., Jalees found herself starting over and coming out. Since 2015, though, she has found success here, too, performing on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Adam Devine’s House Party, Amazon’s Transparent and Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup. She also has written for sitcoms on NBC, ABC and TBS, and is on the current writing staff for the Netflix animated hit, Big Mouth. Jalees began the 2019 development season with a script deal for her own sitcom on FOX, and ended it with a co-starring role on the CBS sitcom Carol’s Second Act, which premieres this fall starring Patricia Heaton. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Alyssa Limperis is an actress, writer and comedian. Although she has performed with the Upright Citizens Brigade on one of their house sketch teams, and currently co-hosts a UCB podcast called Crazy; in Bed, Limperis first found success by following her own path, carving out a career by convincing Conde Nast to make comedy videos featuring her character work. She caught everyone’s eye, and their mothers, when she began writing, acting and editing her own mom videos, and uploading them to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Every once in a long while, if you’re lucky enough, you feel as if you’re on the ground floor of witnessing something awesome before the rest of the world catches on. I’ve already compared Limperis in print to the late great Gilda Radner. Let’s hear how Limperis herself describes her life and career. So let’s get to it!
Natalie Palamides grew up in a small Western Pennsylvania town but could not be contained by convention or conventional wisdom. After an internship with Conan during college, she trained with the Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia, then headed to Hollywood to work with the Upright Citizens Brigade and other theater groups in Los Angeles. You’ve heard her voice on TV as Buttercup in the Cartoon Network’s Powerpuff Girls. In 2017, Palamides took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm with her first show, LAID, winning the Best Newcomer award, and returned the following summer with an ambitious follow-up NATE. Both shows were co-directed by celebrated clown Dr. Brown. Palamides was named one of Time Out LA’s 10 “Comedians to Watch” in 2019. Let’s hear all about her then, so let’s get to it!
Erin Foley’s first big show business credit wasn’t performing comedy, but rather playing a Rolling Stone magazine fact checker in the Cameron Crowe movie about his teen years, Almost Famous. So let’s get to the facts. Foley has performed on Conan, Arsenio Hall and starred in her own half-hour Comedy Central special. She has written on comedy shows for network and cable TV, and starred in a series of interstitials for the Lifetime Channel called Mixologist and a Movie. Her podcast on the All Things Comedy network, Sports Without Balls, is moving up to the big leagues in the summer of 2019. And she just released a new stand-up album, “Deep Dive,” on 800 Pound Gorilla Records. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get to it!
Jamie Morton was working behind the scenes of British television when his father emailed him a link under the name Rocky Flintstone, a link that revealed an erotic novel actually written by Morton’s father. A horribly written novel at that. And more where that came from. Morton and his good friends James Cooper and Alice Levine decided to read and gab about this book, chapter by chapter, in a podcast called My Dad Wrote A Porno. The podcast has spawned more than 160 million downloads, global tours, celebrity fans the likes of Elijah Wood, Dame Emma Thompson, Daisy Ridley and more, and now an HBO special. The trio sat down with me in New York City to talk all about their move in front of the cameras. So let’s get to it!
Rich Vos might not have expected to make it to 60 the way he was living his 20s, addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine. But Vos made it out, and celebrated 33 years clean and sober in 2019. Along the way, he became the first white comic to perform on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam, served as the host and emcee for Woodstock 99, performed as a regular on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, and almost won the first season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. He did end up meeting his future wife on Last Comic, fellow stand-up Bonnie McFarlane. Together they’ve produced a daughter, released a documentary film, Women Aren’t Funny, and continue to co-host a successful podcast called My Wife Hates Me. When Vos did turn 60 in 2017, his funny friends gathered at The Comedy Cellar to roast him, resulting in a comedy special available on Vimeo. Vos has written for the Academy Awards and released five comedy albums, but he’s just as open about his recovery and sobriety as he is about his comedy. And that’s a very welcome thing. So let’s get to it!
Born in Britain, raised in both Jamaica and New York City, and now based in Los Angeles, Ian Edwards has been a successful comedian and TV writer for two decades, dating back to The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show in 1998. Since then, Ian has written for Saturday Night Live, Black-Ish, The Boondocks, The Carmichael Show, Crashing, and Friends from College. He has performed on both Def Comedy Jam and Conan, and holds the distinction of releasing the first and only stand-up comedy album on Team Coco Records. Ian has filmed his first hour special for All Things Comedy, to be presented by Comedy Central sometime in 2019. He was still editing the footage when we met up at The Comedy Store, so let’s get to it!
Sara Schaefer is a critically acclaimed stand up comedian, writer, and producer currently based in Los Angeles. She was the co-host of MTV’s late night show Nikki & Sara Live, which was born out of a podcast she started with Nikki Glaser in her Brooklyn apartment. Sara has won two Emmy awards for her work at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and a Writers Guild Award for Ed Helms’ Comedy Central special The Fake News with Ted Nelms. She recently released her second comedy album, “Live Laugh Love,” and caught up with me before getting back to work on her latest writing gig, an all-star tribute to Laugh In that will premiere on Netflix in May 2019. There’s a lot to get to, and not much time, so let’s get to it!
Kansas City native Chris Porter caught his first big break just months after moving to Los Angeles with a gig competing on NBC’s Last Comic Standing. He finished third that season. Since then, Porter has recorded two comedy albums, a half-hour special for Comedy Central and an hour available on Netflix. His new hour, A Man From Kansas, is out now from Comedy Dynamics. So let’s get to it!
Hampton Yount has already seen the past, present and future of cinema, as spoken through the character Crow T. Robot he voices on Netflix’s new edition of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Before that, Yount had emerged from the DC comedy scene with a job writing and performing on MTV’s long-running series, Ridiculousness. His other writing credits include Loiter Squad and The Eric Andre Show, both on Adult Swim, and you’ve seen him perform stand-up on Conan as well as The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. With his buddy, Dave Ross, Yount also co-hosts the podcast Suicide Buddies. His stand-up comedy album, Able, came out in spring of 2019, just as I sat down to talk with Yount in his home in California. So let’s get to it!
Trae Crowder grew up in rural Tennessee and worked for a federal government agency while harboring dreams of becoming a famous stand-up comedian. Crowder didn’t expect it’d happen thanks to videos he filmed on the back porch as the “Liberal Redneck.” But he went viral in 2016, seen by millions on YouTube and Facebook. With his comedy buddies Corey and Drew, he formed the wellRED comedy team, which has sold-out theaters across America, produced a best-selling book, made appearances on The View, Real Time with Bill Maher, Nightline, multiple news outlets, and even scored a TV network development deal or two. In the spring of 2019, they’ve started making videos for Comedy Central, launched a new theater tour, “From Dixie With Love,” and will release their first wellRED comedy album, “Live from Lexington,” in April 2019. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Jill-Michele Melean’s mother’s Irish, and her father’s Bolivian. But she grew up in Miami surrounded by Cubans. All of which makes her White Latina, the title of her first full stand-up special, out now via Comedy Dynamics. Jilly talks to me about catching her first break by standing in for J.Lo. on set for the 1998 film, Out of Sight, brought her to Hollywood and got her a SAG card. She talks me through the lean years, the heights of becoming MADtv’s first and only Latina cast member, and how she kept going in the years following that gig and Reno 911! Jilly put many of those life, love and career struggles into a feature film she wrote, produced and starred in called This is Meg. So let’s get to it!
Liza Treyger is a New York based stand-up comic by way of Chicago, who grew up in nearby Skokie after immigrating from Russia when she was 3. Treyger has her own Comedy Central half-hour special and album, GLITTERCHEESE, and a more recent half-hour special on Netflix as part of The Degenerates collection of 2018. You’ve also seen her perform on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Chelsea Lately, @Midnight, This is Not Happening, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, Horace & Pete, Adam Devine's House Party, and Lie Detectors. There’s a lot to get to, and only so much Twitter can handle, so let’s get to it!
Yakov Smirnoff got his big break in America thanks to Mitzi Shore, who not only put up the Soviet immigrant in her home behind The Comedy Store in 1977 but also gave Yakov’s father a full-time job, too. Smirnoff himself became a big star during the Reagan years, starring opposite Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson, recurring on NBC’s hit sitcom Night Court, and getting his own Showtime special and short-lived sitcom. What a Country! He also performed several times for Ronald and Nancy Reagan, including a headlining gig at the 1988 White House Correspondents Dinner. In the 1990s, Smirnoff found a new professional home in Branson, Missouri. He still performs in Branson two months a year, when he’s not back in LA where he’s a Comedy Store regular, or out on the road with his new Happily Ever Laughter tour. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get to it!
Keith Malley and Chemda Khalili began podcasting out of their apartment in Queens in March of 2005, three months before Apple recognized podcasting officially on iTunes. “Keith and The Girl” quickly became one of the most popular podcasts, and by 2011, they’d launched a VIP service that garnered some 50,000 paid subscribers, who pay monthly or annually for access to 10 additional podcasts and bonus content. They have written two books together, 2010’s What Do We Do Now? Keith and The Girl’s Smart Answers To Your Stupid Relationship Questions, and The Ultimate Podcasting Guide in 2014. They’re still at it broadcasting several times a week, and caught me up on everything in honor of their 14th anniversary as a podcast. So let’s get to it!
A classically trained theater major who grew up in New Orleans and Minnesota’s Twin Cities, Lyric Lewis took her degree from Syracuse and headed straight for Hollywood, where she auditioned for The Groundlings. Over the course of several years, Lewis worked her way up the ranks, eventually reaching the cast of the Sunday Company. Then in quick succession, she landed a spot in the CBS Diversity Sketch Comedy Showcase, Just For Laughs New Faces Characters, and a role in the reboot of MADtv for The CW. That didn’t last, but she rebounded with a role in the NBC sitcom A.P. Bio, prompting Entertainment Weekly to call her your new comedy crush when A.P. Bio debuted in 2018. Lewis also has appeared in FX’s Baskets, and Comedy Central’s Drunk History. She sat down with me inside The Groundlings training center before season two of A.P. Bio premieres to tell me all about her comedy journey. So let’s get to it!
Steve Agee had a bizarre enough life behind the camera before he ever got his first big shot in front of it thanks to Sarah Silverman. Agee edited footage for MTV’s reality shows such as The Real World, then got a job writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he’s responsible for launching the famous Kimmel bit, Unnecessary Censorship. Since co-starring on the Sarah Silverman Program, Agee is recognizably cast as “that guy” on sitcoms such as “New Girl,” “You’re The Worst,” and “Superstore.” He currently cohosts a podcast with E! late-night talker Busy Phillips called We’re No Doctors. And Agee landed his first leading role in a feature film, the new indie movie Boy Band. Written and directed by the Levinson Brothers, Boy Band is about a late-90s boy band that got old and fat without realizing it, with Agee’s bandmates played by Seth Herzog, Jordan Carlos and Dave Hill. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
In 2019, Dane Cook is heading out for his first full national tour in six years, and he’s calling it his Tell It Like It Is tour, playing venues such as the Wang Theater in his hometown of Boston and Radio City Music Hall in New York City. How is it now for Dane Cook? Cook sat down with me in The Comedy Store’s podcast studio this month to talk through his comedy and personal demons, as well as go back with me to his historic and pioneering rise through social media in the mid 2000s, culminating in HBO specials, double-platinum records, selling out Madison Square Garden, hosting Saturday Night Live twice and starring in major motion pictures. He was the comedy star of the late 2000s. Dane Cook has been through a lot since then and come out the other side. And he’s ready to talk all about it. So let’s get to it!
Henry Rollins was the legendary frontman for hardcore punk band Black Flag in the 1980s, then his own Rollins Band into the 90s and early oughts. Rollins also has written more than two dozen books, appeared in movies such as Heat, Lost Highway and Bad Boys II, on TV in Sons of Anarchy, as well as hosting series for National Geographic and the History Channel, and putting out several spoken word specials. Rollins currently hosts a weekly radio program on KCRW and co-stars in the new SyFy series, Deadly Class. His newest talking show, Keep Talking Pal, premiered on Showtime in 2018 and is available now everywhere via Comedy Dynamics. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Sam Richardson is best known for playing Richard Splett, the only optimistic voice in Selina Meyer’s administration on HBO’s Veep. Richardson spent summers in his childhood across the globe in Ghana with his mother’s side of the family. But he’s also a Detroit native through and through, getting his comedy start as a teen taking classes at Second City Detroit, and later co-creating and co-starring in two seasons of “Detroiters” with his best friend, Tim Robinson, on Comedy Central. You’ve seen Richardson in a variety of roles on screens big and small over the past five years. In 2019, he’s part of Veep’s fond farewell from HBO, as well as the premiere season of “Champaign, Ill.,” on YouTube Premium, where he co-stars with Adam Pally as members of their best friend’s entourage who lose their best friend and everything else. There’s a lot to get to. So let’s get to it!
Shaun Latham found the key to his successful comedy career not in Los Angeles or New York City, but in Indianapolis. That’s where he developed the most in recent years, and found a home with the Pat McAfee Show podcast and a hit web series, 20 Dollar Chef, through Barstool Sports. Latham, who went on the road opening for Gabriel Iglesias and got his first TV credits on Fluffy’s Comedy Central showcase, Stand-Up Revolution, recently did make the move to the Big Apple, where he is hosting his own SiriusXM talk show weekday mornings on the Barstool Sports channel, and preparing to get in the ring for Barstool’s Rough and Rowdy 7 Super Brawl in Atlanta. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Gaby Dunn is a journalist, comedian and actress, who with comedy partner Allison Raskin, wrote, performed and produced the successful YouTube comedy channel “Just Between Us,” with more than 700,000 subscribers. Their young adult novel, “I Hate Everyone But You,” was a New York Times best-seller. Dunn’s podcast, Bad With Money, was named one of the top 10 podcasts of 2016 by The New York Times. Gaby has turned her podcast into a new book, “Bad With Money: The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Sh*t Together.” It’s out now. Gaby pulls back the curtain on the real economics of making money, or failing to, while making YouTube videos and other social media content. So let’s get to it!
Fred Armisen was one of the longest-serving cast members of Saturday Night Live, spending 11 seasons as Fericito, Prince, Barack Obama and more. He has since gone on to star in eight seasons of Portlandia on IFC, two seasons of Big Mouth on Netflix, another two seasons of Documentary Now! on IFC, one season and counting of Forever on Amazon Prime Video, and put out his first solo comedy special in 2018, Standup for Drummers, on Netflix. That doesn’t leave him much time to lead the band for Late Night with Seth Meyers. But a third season of Documentary Now! premieres in February 2019, and there’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Gina Brillon was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and already knew she wanted to be a stand-up comedian before she grew up, starting her career when she was still 17. Brillon became the first Latina winner of NBC’s Stand Up For Diversity competition in 2012, and since then has held sitcom development deals not only with NBC, but also with CBS and ABC. Brillon tours regularly with Gabriel Iglesias when she’s not headlining comedy clubs on her own, and she recently began what could be a recurring role on ABC’s hit sitcom, The Conners. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Before we turn our calendars to 2019 and start making jokes about writing 2018 on all of our checks that we no longer write because we live in a digital age, it’s time once again for our annual tribute to the year’s most valuable players in comedy. This is the fourth time that New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has joined me for this annual debate, and Zinoman got me thinking about whether we should expand our honors to include not only the comedy MVP candidates, but also Rookies of the Year, Comeback Comedian of the Year, and more. Do we talk about Hannah Gadsby? Of course we do. We also get into Tiffany Haddish, Michelle Wolf, Hasan Minhaj, Donald Glover, Kate McKinnon, John Mulaney, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Ellen DeGeneres and more. So let’s get to it!
Brian Regan is most comedians’ favorite comedian. Even if you might not recognize him or place his name, Regan has stood out among stand-ups for the past two decades, with multiple comedy specials to his credit – including Comedy Central’s first and still only live special, recorded at Radio City Music Hall. Regan performed 28 times on David Letterman, and since added a few Fallons. As part of his deal with Netflix, Regan is releasing a four-episode series that’s part classic stand-up routines, part new sketches based on those premises. He produced it with Jerry Seinfeld. Stand Up and Away! comes out this Christmas Eve. So let’s get to it!
Adam McKay won the Academy Award for best screenplay for his adaptation of The Big Short. His newest film at the end of 2018 is VICE, McKay’s darkly satiric yet mostly true retelling of the life and career of Dick Cheney. He has come a long way since his Second City days as an improviser and founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. McKay is a former head writer for Saturday Night Live, where he first teamed up with Will Ferrell on sketches and digital shorts. Their first feature film together was 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. McKay also wrote and directed Ferrell in Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers The Other Guys, Anchorman 2, and on Broadway and HBO in a send-up of George W. Bush called “You’re Welcome America.” Together, McKay and Ferrell formed Gary Sanchez Productions in 2006, and a year later, helped launch Funny or Die. In 2018, McKay had one of his busiest years yet, bringing the series Succession to HBO, executive producing several other TV series, and finishing work on VICE. All while surviving a heart attack. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Sarah Cooper could have enjoyed a lucrative career in tech, only she didn’t enjoy Google as much as she did making jokes about it. She began performing stand-up in 2010, and in 2013, saw a blog post she wrote about how to look smart in meetings go viral and land her a three-book deal. She has moved from New York City to Silicon Valley and back again, and her third book, How To Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings, is out now. So let’s get to it!
Rosebud Baker has two famous names if you know where to look. Her family business isn’t exactly Citizen Kane, although if you were paying any attention to politics, then you know a life of stand-up comedy and podcasting about Justin Bieber is a far cry from her grandfather’s past as Secretary of State for President George H.W. Bush. Rosebud started out as an actress — she co-starred in the 2010 Sundance reality series, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, and now co-hosts a podcast about Justin Bieber called Two Less Lonely Girls. In between, Rosebud has written for Someecards, Elite Daily, The Frisky and more, and she’s starring in a brand-new Amazon Prime series, Inside Jokes, which followed her journey as a New Face at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. So let’s get to it!
Comedy fans have known and loved Jason Mantzoukas for years. Even if you don’t know the name, you’ve probably known and loved Mantzoukas and recognized him from his scene-stealing roles FX’s The League, or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Drunk History, Transparent, I’m Sorry, No Activity, The Good Place, Big Mouth, or in movies such as The Dictator or The House. And you’ve certainly heard him as one-third of the hit podcast How Did This Get Made? Mantzoukas now has his first starring role in a movie, alongside Tony Revolori in The Long Dumb Road. Mantzoukas sat down with me to talk about his own long and not so dumb road from Boston to Morocco to New York City to Hollywood. So let’s get to it!
Anthony Cumia was installing heaters and air conditioners at 33 when a song parody he wrote about OJ Simpson caught the attention of a Long Island radio DJ named Gregg Hughes. Hughes invited Cumia to sit in with him, and from there, The Opie and Anthony Show was born. That was 1994. Twenty years later, SiriusXM fired Cumia after one ill-advised stunt and Tweetstorm too many, and ended the jock duo’s reign of shock and comedy. But Cumia rebounded by starting a livestream from his home. Now he’s built a thriving network of 10 shows out of a Manhattan studio called Compound Media, and he just published his memoir, Permanently Suspended. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Orlando Leyba was born in Puerto Rico but deported to the Dominican Republic with his mother when he was just a small child. Leyba and his mom eventually made it back to the United States, and he got his start in comedy in Miami. Through hard work and timing, he’s risen up the ranks, and in the past year, recorded stand-up for LaffMobb’s Lafftracks on truTV, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and HBO Latino’s Entre Nos. Leyba was a Comic to Watch at the 2018 New York Comedy Festival, and is the first HBO Latino comedian to have his own half-hour special. It’s called Adorable and is out now. So let’s get to it!
Carolyn Taylor, Jennifer Whalen and Aurora Browne met while performing with Second City Toronto. Later, Meredith MacNeill befriended Carolyn on the set of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. These four Canadian women joined forces to create, write, executive produce and Star in their own hilarious sketch comedy series, Baroness Von Sketch Show. They’re in production on season four for the CBC, while season three premieres this November on IFC. So let’s get to it!
When real life becomes even more ridiculous than satire, then what role is there for comedians to play? And how should comedians talk about serious issues while still keeping their senses of humor? Those are two of the questions I posed to comedians on the front lines of the discussion, and on the red carpet of the Golden Probes, a satirical award ceremony mocking misogyny. Among the comedians I chatted with: Comedy Central’s Jordan Klepper and Dulce Sloan, Lizz Winstead and Franchesca Ramsey, Brian Unger, and Margaret Cho. So let’s get to it!
You may or may not remember seeing J. Keith van Straaten in roles on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," “Gilmore Girls,” “Beverly Hills, 90210,” and ads for McDonald’s, Nike, Pizza Hut, Cheez-It, and many more. But if you did, then you’re just the sort of trivia expert who would have loved watching van Straaten host Comedy Central’s TV game show “Beat The Geeks.” He currently contributes to an NPR game show, Ask Me Another, while hosting his own comedy game show podcast, Go Fact Yourself. We got just the facts from van Straaten this summer, so let’s get to it!
Ted Alexandro has made multiple appearances on David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson and The View, had two half-hour specials on Comedy Central, and spent the past couple of years touring theaters and arenas around the world with Jim Gaffigan. He also is one of the co-founders of the New York Comedians Coalition, which successfully organized hundreds of comedians to negotiate the first pay raise in decades in New York City’s comedy clubs. When he’s at home in his native New York City, you can often see Alexandro perform at The Comedy Cellar. He just released his third self-produced stand-up comedy special, “Senior Class of Earth,” out now via All Things Comedy. Alexandro sat down with me at our neighborhood comedy hangout, QED, in Astoria, so let’s get to it!
Darrell Hammond started carving out a career for himself with voiceover work in central Florida after graduating from the University of Florida. More than a decade later, a chance Clinton impersonation during a performance at Carolines scored him his fateful third-times-the-charm audition for SNL in 1995. And more than two decades after that, he’s still hanging around 30 Rock, now providing the lead-in voiceover intros for SNL. And he’s just put out the audio narration of his 2011 memoir, God, If You're Not up There, I'm F*cked. Hammond also has narrated an Audible Original called That’s Clinton recorded live at The Comedy Cellar, and is performing in a special all-star cast reading of the script, Have a Nice Day, recorded live in NYC for Audible with Billy Crystal, Kevin Kline, Annette Bening, Robin Thede and more in a dark comedy about a President trying to save his marriage and his country at the same time. So let's get to it!
Most people still think of Mary Lynn Rajskub as the counterterrorism techie Chloe from FOX’s hit series 24. But Rajskub has a long and storied comedy resume, from Mr. Show and Larry Sanders in the 1990s, to a prime time sketch TV effort with Kelsey Grammer in the 2000s, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Californication, to the movie Night School which opens this fall with Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and many other comedians. I sat down with Rasjkub to talk about her own post-grad journey. So let’s get to it!
Maria Bamford is one of the most exciting stand-up comedians working today. You may have seen her starring in her own Netflix series, Lady Dynamite, based on her own life, or Target’s holiday season TV commercials, based on your own. Bamford has been on the front lines of revolutionizing stand-up comedy, from The Comedians of Comedy Tour with Patton Oswalt, to performing for her parents in The Special Special Special, and making web series such as The Maria Bamford Show for Super Deluxe. Maria has been open about her mental health as well as her financial health, and we talked about as much as we could between her shows at The Bell House in Brooklyn. So let’s get to it!
Mo Mandel is a stand-up comedian who created and executive produces Comedy Knockout for truTV, where comics zing each other and try to win over the studio audience. Before that, he hosted truTV’s BARmageddon and appeared more than 40 times on the panel of Chelsea Lately. You’ve seen him as a co-star on such TV series as Modern Family, Castle and Happy Endings, on his own in a half-hour Comedy Central special and an hour special that debuted on Seeso but is now on Amazon, Negative Reinforcement. And you can hear him in a podcast he co-hosts with his girlfriend, Dr. Ashley, called The Full Release. Mo has been a veteran of Comedy Central contests, but we’re all winners at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival, where Mo and I met up in July 2018. In fact, Mandel just inked a new deal with Amazon to develop an animated comedy series called 2051.
So let’s get to it!
Sam Morril is one of the fastest rising-rising stand-up comics in NYC, having just come off hosting two seasons of People Talking Sports on the MSG network. Morril also has performed on America's Got Talent, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Conan, and Last Comic Standing. He's risen from Comedy Central's Comics to Watch to his own hour special on the network, premiering September 14, 2018. It's called Amy Schumer Presents: SamMorril: Positive Influence. So let's get to it!
Jonathan Katz won Comedy Central’s first-ever Emmy Award for his critically-acclaimed animated series, Dr. Katz, in the mid-1990s. He followed that up with a Peabody Award in 1998. Twenty years later, he’s entertaining us anew with therapy sessions with his famous funny friends in a brand-new Dr. Katz: The Audiobook, for Amazon’s Audible. But before he ever began his comedy career, he led a wonderfully weird life that included becoming best friends with playwright David Mamet in college, writing songs and the story for one movie (House of Games) with him, and touring as the musical director with the one and only Robin Williams. I paid Dr. Katz a house call to sit down and hear all about it, as well as how he lives with MS, in this very special episode of Last Things First. So let’s get to it!
Elayne Boosler’s comedy career began by working the door as the hostess at the original Improvisation club in New York City in the 1970s. For over forty years, she has appeared on seemingly every talk show ever on TV, has written and starred in five of her own one-hour Showtime standup comedy specials, written and directed two movies for Cinemax. She self-financed that first special, 1985’s “Party of One,” because TV networks would not let a female standup have a special. In 1993, Boosler was only the second woman to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and the first comedian to be televised live on C-SPAN. She’s now putting out a boxed set “Elayne Boosler – Timeless”, which includes four of her iconic specials plus a brand-new CD of stand-up. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Tails of Joy – the animal rescue non-profit she founded in 2001. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!
Maeve Higgins was a bestselling memoirist and comedian in her native Ireland when, at the age of 31, she decided to move to America. So immigration isn’t just the subject of her hit podcast, Maeve In America: Immigration IRL, but also a first-hand experience. She co-hosts Neil deGrasse Tyson's StarTalk on National Geographic, as well as the weekly comedy showcase Butterboy in Brooklyn with Aparna Nancherla and Jo Firestone. She has written for The New York Times and The Irish Times, and her new book – MAEVE IN AMERICA: Essays by a Girl from Somewhere Else – is out now. We talk about our respective Irish heritages, what it’s like teaching comedy in the Middle East while ISIS is around the corner, and much more. So let’s get to it!
Judd Apatow and Pete Holmes first met on a podcast, and ever since, have developed a wonderful working relationship. Holmes first pitched the idea for Crashing to Apatow on his late great TBS late-night show, and I caught up with both the stand-up comedian and the writer/director/producer on the set of HBO’s Crashing at The Comedy Cellar, where they were filming an upcoming episode for the comedy’s third season. Apatow and Holmes told me why Pete makes Crashing different from all of the other TV series about comedians, how they keep it real onscreen and onstage, and much more. So let’s get to it!
Zainab Johnson had other plans for her life, perhaps professional basketball or teaching, before a tragic accident changed her life and her worldview. Johnson tells me how she absorbed the lessons of the comedians she hung out with before jumping into comedy herself. So far, so good. After being named a New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs Festival in 2014, she has appeared on HBO’s All Def Comedy, NBC’s Last Comic Standing, Arsenio, BET’s Comic View, MTV’s Acting Out, and AXS-TV’s Gotham Comedy Live! She’s also developing a TV series with the help of Wanda Sykes. So let’s get to it!
In 2011, Rafinha Bastos was named the most influential person on Twitter. Not then-President Barack Obama. Not the Pope. Brazilian comedian and TV personality Rafinha Bastos. Bastos has upward of 12 million Twitter followers now. He sat down with me during Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival to talk about how his dreams shifted from journalism to basketball to comedy, how free speech isn’t so free in Brazil, and how he’s following in the footsteps of Gad Elmaleh and Bassem Youssef in making a name for himself as an English-speaking comedian, too. Bastos will have a new Netflix comedy special out in September 2018, while he also hosts Ultimate Beastmaster alongside UFC star Anderson Silva. So let’s get to it!
Paul Mecurio is seen every night by audiences of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, as he warms them up before the CBS cameras turn on for taping. Mecurio graduated from law school and started out on Wall Street, though, before ever discovering his passions for comedy and getting a big break by selling a joke to Jay Leno. Mecurio has known Colbert for more than two decades, as he was one of the original writers hired for The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn back in 1996. Along the way, he has won an Emmy and a Peabody. He also played a role in a notorious live radio stunt by Opie and Anthony. He's now got a new Off-Broadway show a couple of blocks away from his day job on Broadway called Permission to Speak with Paul Mecurio, where he interacts with the audience to engage in their stories. The show opens today and runs through August 15, 2018. But first he gave permission to speak to me and tell some of his own stories. So let's get to it!
Allan Havey is a comedian and actor who hosted a late-night talk show for the Comedy Channel (before it was Comedy Central) called Night After Night with Allan Havey.You might not have heard much from him in the 1990s and much of the 2000s. But he’s certainly enjoying a renaissance in the past decade, since acting in the 2009 Steven Soderbergh film, The Informant! then continuing with appearances in Louie on FX, followed by The Office, Mad Men, W/Bob & David, The Man in the High Castle, Bosch, GLOW and Billions. Havey has continued to perform stand-up comedy all these years, from the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach to The Comedy Cellar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. In the summer of 2018, he’s taking his act across the pond to the UK and a monthlong stint at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But first he’s talking to me. So let’s get to it!
This is a special edition of Last Things First, recorded live during Clusterfest 2018 in San Francisco. Comedy Central was kind enough to ask me to host a series of Clusterfest panels for the media that they called fireside chats. In this session, I welcomed the Roastmaster himself, Jeff Ross, and two-time Roast Battle runner-up Matt Broussard to talk about the art of roasting, the development of Comedy Central’s Roast Battle series (which tapes its third season this July), and the upcoming Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis. So let’s get to it!
Sam Grittner is one of the best comedians on Twitter. Don’t take my word for it? OK then how about Rolling Stone, Huffington Post and famous comedians such as Weird Al Yankovic, who are among the tens of thousands who follow him and have put him on best of lists in four of the past five years. Grittner also created the parody account @tonightongirls in 2013 and served as lead writer for Internet Action Force, a short-lived comedy video experiment by the New York Post. He hosts a monthly show in Brooklyn that donates all its proceeds to charity. Time to Feel Good, while also talking plainly about mental health and addiction. So let’s get to it!
Paula Poundstone started her comedy career in Boston in the late 1970s before taking her act and her life on the road to San Francisco. Poundstone broke through in a big way in 1984 when Robin Williams asked her to perform stand-up on the episode he guest hosted of Saturday Night Live. She would go on to film two comedy specials for HBO and one for Bravo, become the first woman to deliver the keynote address at the White House Correspondents Dinner back in 1992, write columns for five years in the 1990s for Mother Jones magazine, and become a fixture on the NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, where you can still hear her regularly. In 2017, she published her second book, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search For Human Happiness. And in June 2018, Poundstone invited me into her home in Santa Monica to sit with her dog and many cats to see if we could find some more happiness to share. So let’s get to it!
This is a special edition of Last Things First, recorded live during Clusterfest 2018 in San Francisco. Comedy Central was kind enough to ask me to host a series of Clusterfest panels for the media that they called fireside chats. In this session, I welcomed Sasheer Zamata, Roy Wood Jr., and Mark Normand. We joked about whether comedians should ever apologize, about getting advice from comedians at the top of the ladder as you’re climbing it, and preparing for the next big thing in your careers. All that and more in this episode of The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First, so let’s get to it!
Romesh Ranganathan was a math teacher before devoting his life to stand-up comedy in 2012. Since then, he has found great success in the UK, nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013, and with TV appearances on Live at the Apollo, many panel shows, and his own BBC series for two years, Asian Provocateur. For his next trick, Romesh came to America to see if he could duplicate his comedy success in the States and filmed it for a new TV series, Just Another Immigrant, which premieres in June 2018 on Showtime. Of course, he’s not just another immigrant, but he wanted to show us what it’d look like if he were, uprooting his wife, three kids, and Sri Lankan mother from West Sussex to Los Angeles. So let’s get to it!
This is a special edition of Last Things First, recorded live during Clusterfest 2018 in San Francisco. Comedy Central was kind enough to ask me to host a series of Clusterfest panels for the media that they called fireside chats. In this session, I welcomed Jim Jefferies, Rachel Feinstein, Nikki Glaser and Sam Morril, and we quickly got into the headlines of Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee making public apologies, whether comedians should ever have to apologize, and how comedians can work together. All that and more in this episode of The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First, so let’s get to it!
Nemr grew up in San Diego and then moved back with his family to Lebanon, where he almost singlehandedly introduced the Middle East to the idea of live stand-up comedy. He definitely introduced many American comedians to Middle Eastern audiences over the past decade and more, and he has since toured both there and here in the States as a headliner. You may have seen him on CNN and Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, and NEMR put out his first American stand-up special, No Bombing in Beirut, in 2017 for Showtime. He sat down with me at ShowBriz Studios to talk about growing up in two completely different cultures and starting comedy scenes from scratch. So let’s get to it!
Joshua Jean-Baptisteand Edson Jean met as students at New World School of the Arts in Miami, where both learned how to become multi-hyphenates in this new world of show business, as actors, playwrights and filmmakers. Jean’s college thesis, the short film The Adventures of Edson Jean, was licensed by HBO, and he has appeared in TV and film projects including Moonlight, War Dogs, Ballers and Bloodline. With Jean-Baptiste, the duo pitched a digital series about Haitian-Americans growing up and living in inner-city Miami called #Josh. They won Adaptive Studio’s first Project Greenlight contest for a digital series, and the product, GROWN, debuted in late May on Complex.com. So let’s get to it!
Mark Viera has entertained audiences around the world with stories of growing up, getting married and raising kids in the Bronx. Viera has released a Showtime special, “Tales of a Nuyorican,” opened on tours with singer Marc Anthony and comedian Gabriel Iglesias, and performed everywhere from cruise ships to the Leathernecks of the U.S. Marine Corps. Viera sat down with me to talk about his career, about the ups and downs of selling and reselling a network sitcom based on his own life, and about Laff Mobb’s Laff Tracks on truTV, where you can see his comedy stories brought to life. So let’s get to it!
Who is Nell Scovell? She's the creator of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, first staff writer hired for SPY magazine, second woman ever to write for The Simpsons, and one of only a handful of women to ever write for David Letterman. Scovell's other TV credits include Murphy Brown, Coach and The Muppets. She also wrote jokes for President Barack Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and co-authored Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's memoir, "Lean In." Now Scovell has written her own memoir, "Just the Funny Parts...and a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys' Club." So let's get to it...Get me Nell Scovell!
Jim Florentine rose to fame with his bestselling recordings Terrorizing Telemarketers and by voicing the wildly popular character Special Ed for Comedy Central's "Crank Yankers." Florentine has won an Emmy for his work on HBO's "Inside the NFL" and had two Billboard top-ten comedy albums within a single year. He used to co-host That Metal Show for VH1 and continues to host the Metal Midgets show on Ozzy’s Boneyard channel on SiriusXM Radio. Jim released two comedy specials in 2016, I’m Your Savior, and A Simple Man. Now in 2018 he has a new book out, “Everybody Is Awful (Except You!).” So let’s get to it!
Jim O'Heir is an Emmy-winning actor and comedian best known for co-starring as Jerry Gergich on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. He’s a Chicago guy who trained at Second City in the 1980s, then thrived in an independent improv and sketch group called White Noise, which took him out to Hollywood. O’Heir enjoyed tons of small guest-starring roles on TV for the past two decades before landing his big break with Parks and Rec. Now he’s hosting “Lullaby League,” an a cappella singing competition that debuted this April via YouTube and PopTV.
Louie Anderson won an Emmy Award for his performance as Christine Baskets in FX’s Baskets. He previously won Emmys two decades earlier for his voiceover work in his own animated series Life of Louie. He’s also hosted Family Feud, made a memorable early splash in the Eddie Murphy movie Coming To America, and was part of Rodney Dangerfield’s 9th Young Comedians Special. He just released his latest stand-up special, Big Underwear, as well as a new book: Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, But You Can Read Them Too. There’s a lot to talk about, so let’s get to it!
Brandon Rogers is a YouTube star with four million subscribers and one Streamy Award to his credit. He has starred in two webseries, Sam and Stuff for Facebook, and Magic Funhouse for Fullscreen. Brandon was a New Face at Just For Laughs in 2017, and he stopped by my studio while he’s on his first live comedy tour this spring. So let’s get to it!
In the movie Most Likely To Murder, Adam Pally wants everyone in his hometown on Long Island to believe he’s still the king of his high school, now making it big in Las Vegas when in reality, he’s still stuck working as a bathroom attendant. Over a holiday weekend, he drags them all into his murder-mystery comedy, including Rachel Bloom, John Reynolds and Vincent Kartheiser. The film premiered at SXSW 2018, and will be released May 1 by Lionsgate on demand and on digital platforms. I sat down with the cast, as well as with the writers Doug Mand and Dan Gregor, to find out what stories they told their friends and families back home to explain their fledgling comedy careers before they were stars. So let’s get to it!
Bo Burnham is the quintessential YouTube comedy star. While still a teen, Bo went from recording funny songs in his bedroom to best-selling artist with Comedy Central. Burnham become a successful touring stand-up comedian as well as an actor, appearing on the big screen in Funny People and The Big Sick, and starring on the small screen in MTV’s Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous. After directing two of his three comedy specials, he turned to directing others, including Jerrod Carmichael’s 8 and Chris Rock’s Tamborine. Burnham has now written and directed his first feature film, Eighth Grade, which debuted to raves at the Sundance Film Festival. The film depicts the agony of surviving middle school and social media pressures as an eighth-grade girl in 2018. Burnham sat with me during a screening of the film at SXSW to talk about his own experiences with social media, and what it all means. I’m honored to welcome him as the guest for my 200th episode of Last Things First. So please sit back, enjoy and spread the love of this podcast far and wide, and let’s get to it!
Rachel Bloom is the creator and star of Crazy Ex-Girfriend on The CW, for which she has won the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award for best actress in a comedy series. Bloom’s first big break in musical comedy came in 2010, when she made a music video celebrating author Ray Bradbury. Along the way, she has written and/or performed for Allen Gregory, Robot Chicken, and BoJack Horseman. She's taking Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on a live theater tour this spring, and she next co-stars in Most Likely To Murder, a movie written and directed by her husband, Dan Gregor. He joins in our discussion, so let’s get to it!
Bill Hader was nominated for three Emmy Awards for acting during his eight seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, has written for South Park, lent his voice to animated hits such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Inside Out, and served up memorable supporting roles in the films Superbad, Tropic Thunder and Trainwreck. After co-creating the great IFC mockumentary series Documentary Now! He now stars as Barry in HBO’s Barry, about a Marine veteran who becomes a hit-man, but realizes his true potential, or disastrous end, could come by pursuing an acting career in Hollywood. Hader created, wrote, directed and executive produced Barry with Alec Berg, no stranger to HBO as a past EP on Curb Your Enthusiasm and current EP on Silicon Valley. Hader and Berg sat down with me during SXSW in Austin to explain how and why they made Barry. So let’s get to it!
Sharon Houston punked Magic Johnson, Too Short, and 18 other celebrities on Punk’d, fooled Kim Kardashian’s fans on Celebrities Undercover, and has filmed hidden-camera pilots for VH1, E!, Disney Channel, Style Network and Dick Clark Productions. Sharon has been a fixture in clubs and cabarets since the 1990s, first in New York City and more recently in Los Angeles. Her podcast, Daytime Justice, looks under the robe at daytime court TV shows and reveals behind-the-scenes stories from her work as a show producer. Sharon has performed stand-up on Comedy Central, Last Comic Standing, MTV and VH1, and she appeared on Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time. She released her first comedy album, “Shuran Shuran,” in late 2017. And in early 2018, she sat down with me in Hollywood to talk shop. As Jon Stewart once told her: “Stop complaining. This is the fun part.” So let’s get to it!
Brian Volk-Weiss is the founding president of Comedy Dynamics, which grew out of New Wave Entertainment to become the largest independent stand-up comedy production and distribution company. You see the Comedy Dynamics logo on almost every new stand-up special you see these days, no matter where you see it. Since 2016, his company also has produced series such as History’s Join or Die with Craig Ferguson, Animal Planet’s Animal Nation with Anthony Anderson, There’s Johnny… which started at Seeso and ended up at Hulu. I caught up with Brian in his offices in Burbank, California a few days before the Grammy Awards, where he had an 80 percent chance of being responsible for the Grammy-winning Best Comedy Album of 2017. So let’s get to it!
Candice Thompson is a former finalist on Stand Up NBC’s talent search who has performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and served as a correspondent on the E! series, The Comment Section. She has starred in her own YouTube sketch comedy series, and written for the game show Smart, Funny and Black. Thompson just launched her own podcast, The Struggle, but first, she sat down with me to talk about overcoming her own personal and professional struggles, so let’s get to it!
Benji Aflalo is a stand-up comedian, who alone together with comedy pal Esther Povitsky, created, executive produces and stars in the sitcom Alone Together — which already has been picked up for second season by Freeform. They play versions of themselves, friends from different backgrounds trying to find love and success in Hollywood. Alone Together is also executive produced by The Lonely Island guys. Benji met Esther at The Comedy Store, where he’s part of a grand tradition of comedians who were former doormen at the club. He’s also written for The Burn with Jeff Ross, Not Safe with Nikki Glaser and the Comedy Central Roasts of James Franco and Justin Bieber.
So let’s get to it!
Jade Catta-Preta is a Brazilian-born comedian and actress who you can see on the truTV series, Those Who Can’t, and in person frequently at The Comedy Store when she’s not touring as a feature act for Bobby Lee, Kevin Nealon or Bill Burr. In 2014, she co-starred as a regular on three different series, MTV’s Girl Code, Showtime’s Californication, and ABC’s Manhattan Love Story. She’s also appeared on TV as a host on VH1, co-star of MTV’s Ladylike, and guest on shows such as @midnight, Comedy Knockout, and Getting Doug With High. She recently returned to her native Brazil to perform there in Portuguese, and she tells me what happened and what’s next for her, so let’s get to it!
Jeff Dye was a finalist on Last Comic Standing only three years into his comedy career. Since then, Dye has hosted two MTV series – Numbnuts, and Money From Strangers – one Spike game show, That Awkward Game Show, appeared frequently on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and competed against other celebrities on both Lip Sync Battle and I Can Do That. For two seasons now, he has served as tour guide for William Shatner, Terry Bradshaw, George Foreman and Henry Winkler across the globe on NBC’s celebrity bucket list travelogue, Better Late Than Never. We’ve known each other for years, but this is his first sit-down on my podcast. Better late than never, right? So let’s get to it!
You probably recognize Matt Jones from the critically acclaimed AMC series, Breaking Bad, where he played Badger. But Jones has an extensive comedy background, starting in Southern California, where he performed improv in high school, then eventually to Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, and back to Hollywood for multiple TV roles in sitcoms and sketch shows the likes of Reno 911, Community, The Office, and the pilot episode of Key and Peele. He has co-starred more recently as a regular on the CBS sitcom, Mom, and stars in the new Pop series where he runs an aerobics studio, Let’s Get Physical. So let’s get to it!
You may think you know Katt Williams, but you don’t know the Katt Williams behind the headlines. You may know him from his role as Money Mike on Friday After Next, or from Wild ‘N Out, or from his four HBO specials: The Pimp Chronicles, Pt. 1; It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’; Kattpacalypse; and Priceless: Afterlife. He now has his first Netflix special called Great America, and is ready to tell me the whole story. So let’s get to it!
Jena Friedman is a stand-up comedian, writer and producer who’s now about to star in her first late-night special for Adult Swim. Friedman has written for The Late Show for David Letterman, produced for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and taken a one-woman show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She later taped that show, American Cunt, as a special for Seeso. It’s available on audio on iTunes. She’s about to keep me very woke, so let’s get to it!
Cipha Sounds got his start carrying crates and opening for Funkmaster Flex and was a longtime DJ on HOT 97 in New York City and VJ on Yo! MTV Raps. But his comedy cred is just as impressive, serving as the DJ for Chappelle’s Show on Comedy Central, going on tour with the likes of Chappelle and Michael Che, and hosting a variety of comedy showcases, from Take It Personal: The Hip Hop Improv Show at the UCB Theatre, to his Tidal series, No Small Talk, and regular hosting duties at New York City’s legendary Comedy Cellar. Cipha also hosts the new truTV series, Laff Mobb’s Laff Tracks, which debuted in January 2018. So let’s get to it!
For a third consecutive year, New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has invited me into his home so we can tackle the year in comedy, but hopefully from a largely positive standpoint by focusing on the MVPs, the most valuable performers in comedy this year. In 2017, despite the Trump effect having much more serious repercussions than some expected, we had plenty of positives to look back on, from Nathan Fielder to Jordan Peele, as well as Tig Notaro, Dave Chappelle, Tiffany Haddish, Kumail Nanjiani, Donald Glover, Jimmy Kimmel and more. Who’d we single out this year? I want to find out, too, so let’s get to it!
Jackie Martling was a longtime writer and performer on The Howard Stern Show from 1983 to 2001, who also was showing up monthly in the pages of Penthouse magazine, opening comedy clubs on Long Island, released six dirty joke records, and published Jackie The Joke Man Martling’s Disgustingly Dirty Joke Book. After splitting from Stern, he hosted Jackie’s Joke Hunt for several years on SiriusXM satellite radio. He has a new book out in 2017, his memoir The Joke Man: Bow to Stern. So let's get to it!
Sue Costello grew up in the powder keg of Irish Catholicism getting more diverse that was Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood in the 1970s. Costello got herself out of Dorchester to make a lot of hay in Hollywood two decades later, culminating in her own FOX sitcom, Costello. Since then, you’ve seen her as a regular on the roundtable for Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, while her street smarts and brutal honesty won her a role on David O. Russell’s 2010 film, The Fighter. There’s no turning back, no holding back, so let’s get to it!
Kev Adams is France’s biggest young comedy star, with 6 million Twitter followers and another 5 million checking out his Instagram. He was performing one-man shows in Paris while still a teenager, and starred in 692 episodes of the TV series, Soda. He also co-starred in two hit movies in France, Serial Teachers, and The New Adventures of Aladdin. Adams has toured with his idol, Gad Elmaleh, and like Gad, Kev is now making a go of it in America. He co-wrote and co-stars in a series Super High for the blackpills app. And He’ll be seen in his first major American movie, The Spy Who Dumped Me, in 2018 alongside Kate McKinnon and Mila Kunis. Kev tells me about his wild ride, and the transition to the States, so let’s get to it!
Orny Adams played Coach Bobby Finstock for six seasons of MTV’s Teen Wolf. But to comedy fans, Orny is famously and infamously known as the co-star of Jerry Seinfeld’s documentary, Comedian. While Seinfeld developed a new hour of stand-up from scratch, Comedian followed Orny’s obsessive path as an aspiring comedian making his debut as a New Face at Just For Laughs in Montreal. Orny has since performed multiple times at JFL Montreal, and his newest hour, More Than Loud, debuts Dec. 1, 2017, on Showtime. This interview is even more than you’re expecting. Look out, Oprah. So let’s get to it!
You’ve seen Bob Saget’s friendly face on TV for four decades now, ever since he starred in the late 1980s in the ABC sitcom Full House as well as the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos. More recently, he has provided the narrator’s voice of future Ted Mosby for the CBS hit, How I Met Your Mother, performed on Broadway, written a memoir and recorded a Grammy-nominated comedy album. That’s What I’m Talking About. He just released his latest comedy special, Zero to Sixty, and now that he’s 61, he’s got plenty more to talk about now. So let’s get to it!
Colton Dunn began performing improv comedy while still a teenager in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dunn moved to New York City just in time to join the upstart Upright Citizens Brigade, then went to Amsterdam to perform with Boom Chicago. When he returned to the U.S., Dunn wrote and performed on MADtv, Pretend Time with Nick Swardson, Parks and Recreation, Burning Love, Comedy Bang! Bang!, the new Arsenio Hall show, and Key & Peele. Dunn co-stars now as Garrett in the NBC sitcom Superstore, and he also is a member of Rooster Teeth’s Lazer Team, which is putting out its second film via YouTube Red in November 2017. So let’s get to it!
Judah Friedlander may be best known for playing TV writer Frank Rossitano on the hit NBC sitcom, 30 Rock, but Judah has been making his appearance felt on screens big and small, with or without his trademark trucker hats. From his roles in films such as American Splendor, The Wrestler, Wet Hot American Summer, Meet the Parents -- from a bar patron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens to comic relief in the Project Greenlight horror film Feast. Judah Friedlander truly is the World Champion. Two books, How to Beat Up Anybody: An Instructional and Inspirational Karate Book, and a collection of drawings called If The Raindrops United. His first stand-up special is almost three decades in the making, Judah Friedlander’s America is the Greatest Country in the United States, now available on Netflix. So let’s get to it!
Jenn McAllister has 3.1 million subscribers and counting on YouTube, where she documents her life as jennxpenn. Jenn started uploading videos to YouTube when she was 12. At 16, she signed a deal with Awesomeness TV, then moved from Bucks County Pennsylvania to Los Angeles. She published her best-selling autobiography, Really Professional Internet Person, in 2015, and for the past two years has starred in the YouTube Red series, Foursome, alongside Logan Paul, for which she won a Streamy Award as best actress in 2016. The third season of Foursome premieres in November 2017, and Jenn caught me up on everything. So let’s get to it!
Mark Feuerstein co-created, produces and stars in the new CBS sitcom 9JKL, which is loosely based on his real-life experience moving back to NYC to live next to his parents and brother while starring for eight seasons on the USA drama Royal Pains. Feuerstein began acting as a student and classmate of mine at Princeton University, and after winning a Fulbright Scholarship, found early success in Hollywood, scoring network TV roles in Caroline in the City, Fired Up, Conrad Bloom and Good Morning Miami. He’s also co-starred on the big screen with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic, Albert Brooks in The Muse, Mel Gibson in What Women Want and Penelope Cruz in Woman on Top. He also appeared in 2017 on the new installments of both Prison Break and Wet Hot American Summer. There’s a lot of catching up to do, so let’s get to it!
Comedians, writers and actors Corinne Fisher and Krystyna Hutchinson co-host the incredibly successful podcast Guys We Fcked: The Anti Slut-Shaming Podcast which now has more than 200 episodes talking to comedians, porn stars, and more, a worldwide audience of more than a million listeners. They’ve taken their show on the road to comedy clubs, theaters, TED Talks and festivals. Now they’ve released their first book: FCKED: Being Sexually Explorative and Self-Confident in a World That’s Screwed. So let's get to it!
Vladimir Caamano grew up in an immigrant Dominican family in the Bronx to live the American comedy dream. Since breaking out as a New Face in the 2015 Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, he has been anointed by Howie Mandel in a televised gala for The CW, co-wrote and starred in an NBC pilot based on his life and comedy with hit producer Bill Lawrence, and named one of Variety magazine’s Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2016. In 2017, Caamano has performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live and in HBO’s first English-speaking comedy showcase for HBO Latino, Entre Nos: Part 2. You’re going to be seeing and hearing a lot more from him, so let’s get to it!
Best known for his work on Ren & Stimpy, Billy West has been making magic with his character voice work since the 1980s, starting on the radio in Boston and graduating to the Howard Stern Show. He has voiced the title characters on the Nickelodeon series Doug, as well as Ren & Stimpy, was Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd for the movie Space Jam, is the red M&M in TV commercials, portrayed Philip J. Fry and several other characters on Futurama, and in 2018, he’ll co-star in Matt Groening’s newest animated series for Netflix, Disenchantment. So let’s get to it!
Heather Anne Campbell is one of America’s great improvisers. She has studied under the legendary Del Close in Chicago, performed overseas with Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, appeared on MADtv, written for Saturday Night Live, and helped jumpstart FOX’s ADHD Animation Domination High-Definition. In Los Angeles, you’ve seen her or taken classes from her everywhere you possibly could, from the UCB Theatre, The Groundlings, IO West and The Pack. She’s written and performed The Midnight Show, and The Eric Andre Show. While pitching new shows to the networks, she’s currently a regular on The CW’s Whose Line Is It Anyway? There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s get to it!
Chaz Miller, Cameron Miller, and Amanuel Richards are one half of the sketch comedy group Dormtainment, who formed in Atlanta in 2009. They went straight from college to YouTube, and over the next eight years, amassed one million YouTube subscribers, a Comedy Central web series called Six Guys One Car, two albums on the Billboard comedy charts, and a live show that’s a hit on college campuses. They’ve now joined Kevin Hart for his new online venture, the Laugh Out Loud Network, where they produce and star in the satire of National Geographic called Black Geo. They invited me into their Comedy Trap House in the San Fernando Valley to tell me how they did it. So let’s get to it!
Jimmy Shubert was just a kid from Philly who wanted to be a magician. That’s how he started in show business, before moving to Los Angeles in the 1980s and taking a job at The Comedy Store, where he became the kid in Sam Kinison’s outlaws of comedy crew. That led to development deals and pilots early on in his career. Over the years, you’ve seen him in recurring roles on King of Queens and Entourage, more recently as a finalist on Last Comic Standing and a headliner on Dave Attell’s Comedy Underground. I caught up with Shubert at Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival, where he was performing as part of the Masters showcase. So let’s get to it!
Dave Smith is a native New Yorker and key member of the emerging new platform, GaS Digital Network. You’ve likely heard Dave as one-third of the Legion of Skanks alongside Big Jay Oakerson and Luis J Gomez, or as host of the podcast Part of the Problem, which combined receive hundreds of thousands of downloads each week. You also can see Dave featured regularly as a comedic political analyst on FOX News. He was a New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs fest in 2013, and in 2017, he has released his first stand-up comedy special, Libertas, the first such special for GaS Digital. It’s out Sept. 11. So let’s get to it!
Scot Armstrong grew up outside of Chicago and first studied comedy under the legendary Del Close, before moving to New York City and joining the Upright Citizens Brigade improv troupe Mother, whose members included Jason Mantzoukas, Jon Daly and Jessica St. Clair. He has since worked with St. Clair as an executive producer on both of her TV series, Best Friends Forever and Playing House. But you’ve come to know Armstrong’s work more through his screenplays, which have included Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, School for Scoundrels, Semi-Pro, and The Hangover Part II. He’s also the creator of the Showtime series DICE, which follows Andrew Dice Clay now past his prime in Las Vegas. DICE’s second season debuted in August 2017. Armstrong sat down with me to talk about the Mother of all comedy stories, so let’s get to it!
Ryan Hamilton grew up in a small town in Idaho and studied broadcasting before turning to comedy. Hamilton calls several comedy scenes home, and that perhaps allowed him to emerge nationally in the mid-2000s in Sierra Mist’s America’s Next Great Comic Search. He’s also won the Great American Comedy Festival contest, and performed multiple times at Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival, where I caught up with Hamilton before the debut of his first Netflix special, Happy Face. So let’s get to it!
Lynne Koplitz caught her first wave of success hosting or co-hosting TV shows the likes of Change of Heart, How to Boil Water, and Life and Style. The stylish comedian became friends with the late great Joan Rivers while paired up in the IFC comedy Z Rock, and later became a recurring character on Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best. Koplitz more recently was seen on the big screen in Chris Rock’s Top Five, and the small screen in Louis CK’s Horace and Pete, and she dedicated her first Netflix comedy special, Hormonal Beast, to her mentor, Joan Rivers. Koplitz tells all to me…So let’s get to it!
Janicza Bravo has made several short films that debuted at premier festivals such as Sundance and SXSW, and also directed an episode of the hit FX series, Atlanta. Bravo’s first feature film, Lemon, features her husband, Brett Gelman, as an actor and acting coach who turns 40 and realizes nothing in his life is where it’s supposed to be. In real life, you’ve seen Gelman shine in everything from Mad Men to Twin Peaks, as well as Comedy Bang! Bang!, Funny or Die Presents, Married, Love and Blunt Talk. They co-wrote Lemon, which hits theaters this August after a Sundance premiere earlier in 2017.
I sat down with Bravo and Gelman for some blunt talk about their love, marriage and how they think their lives and careers are matching up to expectations. So let’s get to it!
Natalie Morales is an actress best known for her supporting roles in sitcoms that have included Parks and Recreation, Trophy Wife, Girls, and The Grinder. She’s also done drama with White Collar, and action-adventure with The Middleman. She directed a webseries for Funny or Die about James Joyce’s Love Letters, and you can currently see her on the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet. Later in 2017, she'll co-star in the movie, Battle of the Sexes. But it's all love, no war here. So let’s get to it!
Nate Bargatze is Jimmy Fallon’s favorite stand-up comedian, and Bargatze has the Tonight Show credits to back that up. Nate also has gone on tour with Fallon, multiple tours to entertain the troops in Iraq and Kuwait, and has two hit comedy albums to boot: Yelled At By A Clown and Full Time Magic. Those are references to his father, who was a clown and now is a magician. Bargatze released his first hour special on Comedy Central in 2016, and he performs in two separate Netflix specials in 2017 — a Half-Hour as part of The Standups collection, and a showcase set in Brad Paisley’s Comedy Rodeo. He’s just as fun to talk to offstage as he is to listen to on it, so let’s get to it!
Judd Apatow has one of the most impressive comedy resumes of anyone, anywhere. His Apatow Productions has produced and developed the television series Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, Girls, Love and Crashing, he has directed the hit movies The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Funny People, This Is 40 and Trainwreck, and produced another dozen smash comedies on film since the late 1990s. Before that, he wrote and produced on The Ben Stiller Show and The Larry Sanders Show. Before that, he infamously interviewed famous comedians while still in high school in the mid 1980s. As he approaches 50, though, Apatow has returned to his comedy roots and filming his first stand-up comedy special for Netflix. which he’s recording at Just For Laughs in Montreal. I sat down with him as he made his final preparations for it, so let’s get to it!
Dylan Brody started his stand-up career in New York City while still a teenager in the early 1980s, performing on multiple TV showcases, writing monologue jokes for Jay Leno when Leno was still just guest-hosting The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and he has performed around the world. In more recent years, you may have seen him on The Green Room with Paul Provenza, opening for fellow humorist David Sedaris on his stage tour, or on NPR affiliates in California. Brody has released several comedy albums just in the past decade, published three young adult books, and is touring his latest work, a one-man show about his life and career, Dylan Brody's Driving Hollywood. So let's get to it!
Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley had mutual friends growing up in Nebraska, but didn’t meet each other until they were both aspiring comedic actresses in Los Angeles. Hensley has appeared in shows such as Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Smedley has appeared in several TV commercials. But together, they’ve built up a fan base of more than a million Facebook followers for their video series, I Mom So Hard. They talked to me about why they went to Facebook first instead of YouTube, and how they’ve adapted in just a year to performing for sold-out audiences across the country. I caught up with them in Los Angeles during a break in their Mom’s Night Out Summer Break Tour that’s hitting theaters across America in 2017. So let’s get to it!
Erik Griffin is recognizable to fans of Comedy Central’s Workaholics as Montez, but he’s also a veteran stand-up comedian who’s playing a stand-up comedian and a Vietnam veteran in the Showtime series about comedy in the 1970s, I’m Dying Up Here. I sat down with Griffin in LA’s iconic Canter’s Deli to talk about his career path, what it’s like to fictionalize stand-up comedy for TV, and the making of his first one-hour special, The Ugly Truth, which premieres on Showtime this July. So let’s get to it!
Tom Rhodes has been obsessed with stand-up comedy since he was 12. As a teenager in Florida in the 1980s, he performed with fake IDs to get into the comedy clubs and won a contest that allowed him to perform at 19 at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. After stops in New York City and San Francisco, Rhodes became the first comedian signed to a deal with Comedy Central, and starred in his own NBC sitcom, Mr. Rhodes, in the mid-1990s. A decade later, he was hosting his own late-night talk show in Amsterdam. Three CDs, two half-hour specials, self-produced DVDs and many travels later, Rhodes and his wife are still globetrotting, but stopped long enough to catch me up on where he’s been and what’s next. So let’s get to it!
Haley Joel Osment was just a kid when he made his movie debut in Forrest Gump, racked up TV appearances as Jeff Foxworthy’s sitcom son and the Murphy Brown baby growing up, and earned his first Oscar nomination at the tender age of 11 for seeing dead people in The Sixth Sense. He’s also worked with Stephen Spielberg, starring in A.I., and paid it forward in Pay It Forward. After graduating from NYU, he returned with roles on Comedy Bang! Bang! and both of IFC’s soap opera satires with Will Ferrell, and he now steals scenes on HBO’s Silicon Valley. I caught up with him in Hollywood to catch us all up on his career and life growth before Silicon Valley’s 4th season comes to an end. So let’s get to it!
Chris Hardwick is probably hosting a TV show or podcast as you listen to me introduce him here. Four nights a week, Hardwick hosts the comedy game show @midnight on Comedy Central. Sunday nights you can watch him Talking with Walking Dead cast members and everyone else on AMC. He also hosts a primetime game show for NBC, The Wall. Hardwick currently serves as founder, CEO, and creative head of Nerdist Industries, a media empire under the Legendary Digital Network that encompasses a website, youtube channel and podcast network, including his own Nerdist podcast that receives millions of monthly downloads. He’s come a long way since co-hosting Singled Out on the MTV. You probably want to find out how he did it. So let’s get to it!
A comedian, actor and writer, Jim Jefferies has established himself as one of the most respected comics of his generation with a controversial and belief-challenging stand-up style that continues to surprise and entertain audiences around the globe. He recently wrapped an international stand-up tour, “The Unusual Punishment Tour,” to rave reviews which came on the heels of releasing his second Netflix special Freedumb last summer. Jefferies burst onto the U.S. comedy scene in 2009 with his popular HBO special I Swear to God, the first of seven specials, including his debut Netflix special, Jim Jefferies: BARE, which garnered attention for an iconic set focused on guns and gun control in the United States. Jefferies starred as himself in the FX series, Legit, and now helms his own newsy talk show on Comedy Central, The Jim Jefferies Show. I spoke to him the morning after his series premiere, so let's get to it!
Tom Shlllue can be seen on FOX News, where he hosted the late late-night comedy panel show, Red Eye, and still appears regularly in other hours, offering his homespun comedic values to the day’s news.Shillue has been featured on Comedy Central’s Broad City, and he can be seen and heard from time to time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon as a member of Fallon’s celebrity barbershop quartet, The Rag Time Gals. Shillue’s first book, Mean Dads For A Better America: The Generous Rewards Of An Old Fashioned Childhood, is out now. In it, Tom recalls a time when parents genuinely ruled over their children, while still giving them plenty of space outside without technology to roam wild. Tom tells me all about that, releasing 12 comedy albums in one calendar year, and much more. So let’s get to it!
Mark Lonow is an actor, producer and talent manager, but he's perhaps best known for something else he did offstage -- going into business with Budd Friedman to save the Hollywood Improv and help oversee its expansion as the first major comedy club chain. But there's a lot more to Lonow's story, from his job as a teenager at the legendary Pip's in Brooklyn, to the improv/sketch trio he performed in with his wife and Henry Winkler which led him to Budd in the first place. From his own starring turn on TV in the 1970s, to organizing the strike against the Comedy Store in the late 1970s, to his extended family with Claudia Lonow and Michael Rappaport, to exeutive producing multiple specials and projects for Lewis Black, to seeing comedy through the 1980s boom, the bust of the 1990s and now the rebirth and boom of the 21st century. As we prepare to look back at 1970s Los Angeles comedy through Showtime's adaptation of the book, I'm Dying Up Here... who better than someone who lived through it to tell us what's next for comedy today. And why he still wants to be part of that. So let's get to it!
Lavell Crawford is best known for his portrayal of Huell, the bodyguard for Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and now Better Call Saul. Originally from St. Louis, Crawford rose up the comedy ranks from Showtime at the Apollo to Comicview to Def Comedy Jam to runner-up on season five of Last Comic Standing. He since has been seen multiple times as a panelist on Chelsea Lately and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, on the big screen in 2016 for both The Ridiculous 6, and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. He provides a voice on Comedy Central’s animated series, Legends of Chamberlain Heights, and headlines a summer 2017 stand-up theater tour called Comedy’s Most Wanted. So let’s get to it!
Scout Durwood grew up in the Kansas outskirts of Kansas City with dreams of becoming the next Julia Roberts. Instead, after first playing soccer and then becoming a cabaret singer, Scout’s first major screen credit came in the MTV reality dating stunt, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Durwood shook that off to remain entrenched in New York City’s cabaret and burlesque scenes as a funny singer, taking a one-woman musical to the Edinburgh Fringe, winning the Moth StorySLAM, and then re-trying reality television years later in Los Angeles with Oxygen’s Funny Girls. Scout stood out there, but she really shined more recently as a star of the MTV comedy Mary + Jane, produced by Snoop Dogg. She now has completed a project that perhaps best represents her spirit of whimsy and her many talents – Take One Thing Off, her first album for Blue Elan Records, 19 tracks produced by Dave Darling that breaks up her funny songs with funny stand-up bits recorded at The Pack Theater in Los Angeles. So let’s get to it!
Norm Macdonald is Canada’s most-famous play-by-play golf commentator on Twitter. Of course, you know and love Norm Macdonald even more for his years anchoring Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live in the mid-1990s, followed by The Norm Show on ABC. He’s also much beloved by David Letterman and many other comedians for the way he breaks down jokes to their humorous essence, whether it was his memorable Roast of Bob Saget, or in his criticisms of aspiring stand-ups on Last Comic Standing. He’s been Col. Sanders for KFC, and written a fictionalized memoir, “Based on a True Story.” His second stand-up special and first for Netflix, called Hitler’s Dog: Gossip & Trickery, is available for streaming now. So let’s get to it!
Aunty Donna is an Australian sketch comedy group that includes no aunts and no Donnas, but instead one Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane. They burst onto the comedy scene Down Under with their first show in 2012 at Melbourne’s comedy and fringe festivals. They produced a new show each year since, taking three of them to the other side of the globe at the Edinburgh Fringe, and they’ve accumulated almost 150,000 YouTube subscribers by the time they sat down with me at ShowBriz Studios, where they’re prepared to launch their first North American tour starting in May 2017. So let’s get to it!
Eddie Pepitone has been called “The Bitter Buddha,” which also is the title of the 2012 documentary about the comedian, a New Yorker by birth who has called Los Angeles his home for the better part of the twenty-first century since landing a role in the hit movie, Old School. You’ve seen and heard him in many TV shows over the past decade, including The Sarah Silverman Program, Bob’s Burgers, Maron, Community and a recurring bit as Conan O’Brien’s late-night heckler on Conan. His first Netflix special is In Ruins, and he plays a tortured soul in Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, which wraps its third season on Adult Swim this May. How close is that to real life? Pepitone sat down with me during the Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin, Texas, to talk about his comedic journey from Chicago City Limits to Hollywood, with a detour into the chaos of politics after the 2016 presidential election, his Twitter feed, and how he can find any serenity today.
So let’s get to it!
Joe DeRosa started his comedy career in the urban rooms of Philadelphia, and not long after he moved to New York City he earned a spot touring with Dave Chappelle. With Bill Burr and Robert Kelly,DeRosa co-wrote and starred in a short film called CHEAT, which they also turned into a book. DeRosa also has written for TV shows including The Pete Holmes Show and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp; and like Burr, he also has ties to the Breaking Bad universe, appearing onscreen as the veterinarian Dr. Caldera on AMC’s Better Call Saul. He released three previous comedy albums for Comedy Central records, and his new hour special, which he directed, “You Let Me Down,” premiered in February 2017 on Comedy Central. You can hear DeRosa on several different podcasts, most recently engaging in Emotional Hangs with Kurt Braunohler. He and his dog checked in with me from his home in Southern California, so let’s get to it!
Americans may know Aziz Ansari, Hari Kondabolu or Russell Peters, but Vir Das is the biggest Indian-born comedian and Bollywood actor back home, where he hosted up to four shows at once on Indian television. Das first came to America for college, and he’s back now on an American tour promoting his first Netflix special – TENT – which he filmed in both New Delhi and New York. His 2017 tour also will take him to 20 countries on six continents, including Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the UK, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Belgium, Nigeria and France. Das also curates Weirdass Pajama, India’s largest comedy festival, so let’s get to it!
Ian Harvie came out to his family three times in Maine, as gay at 19, as transgender at 22, and as a stand-up comedian at 33. Now a trans man in his 40s, Harvie produced one of the best stand-up specials of 2016, Seeso’s “May the Best Cock Win.” In between, he met Margaret Cho thanks to MySpace, eventually becoming her opening act across North America, taking his own solo shows to the Melbourne comedy festival and San Francisco Sketchfest, starting his own comedy festival back home in Maine, and appearing onscreen in Amazon’s award-winning series, Transparent, and ABC’s soapy drama, Mistresses. He shares his relentlessly positive outlook with me and lessons he has learned along the way, so let’s get to it!
Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap are some of the funniest comedy pioneers around. Matt Belknap was an aspiring screenwriter when he launched a message board for Tenacious D fans that became something larger, ASpecialThing.com. Around the same time he decided to start his own record label, he also convinced stand-up comedian and host with the most Jimmy Pardo to launch a weekly podcast. Never Not Funny debuted in the spring of 2006, put up a paywall in 2008 because how were you supposed to make money making podcasts? And in 2015, Never Not Funny joined the Earwolf podcast network. They’d just completed their eighth annual Pardcast-A-Thon raising more than six figures worth in donations to Smile Train when I convinced them to come back into their studio to meet up with me and travel back down memory lane. So let’s get to it!
Jay Chandrasekhar has spent the past two decades writing, directing and acting in film and television. With his group Broken Lizard, he has co-written, co-starred and directed their feature films, Super Troopers, Beerfest and Club Dread. He’s also directed the big-screen version of Dukes of Hazzard, small-screen episodes of Arrested Development, and appeared in a memorable stunt for Jackass 2. But Chandrasekhar also spent some of his formative years studying improv comedy from the legendary Del Close in Chicago, editing the late Mitch Hedberg’s film, Los Enchiladas!, and bringing sketch and improv comedy to New York City when the only other game in town was a plucky group from NYU called The State. Chandrasekhar shares stories about all of that, plus the successful Indiegogo campaign to fund Super Troopers 2, in his new memoir, Mustache Shenanigans, and also in a sit-down with me in the offices of Dutton’s Penguin Random House. So let’s get to it!
Jim Norton is a best-selling author and comedian you've seen in multiple stand-up specials on HBO and EPIX and in recurring roles on Louie and Inside Amy Schumer. But you've likely also heard him for almost two decades now every morning on the radio -- first as the third mic with Opie and Anthony, then second mic with Opie, and now co-hosting his own SiriusXM program weekday mornings with Sam Roberts. Norton's newest stand-up special, his first for Netflix, is called Mouthful of Shame. Jim sat down with me at the Olive Tree Cafe above the Comedy Cellar to talk about how we all can get over our personal shame, how he was three years sober when he finally felt ready to pursue his comedy dreams, how Jim Florentine, Andrew Dice Clay and others helped him along the way, why he chose to work with Jay Leno, how to stay above the fray when comedians attack other comedians, and having gratitude that you can get Robert De Niro to spank your bare ass. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!
Gina Yashere first came to the attention of Americans in 2007 when she appeared on season five of Last Comic Standing (the first international season, which also featured finalists Amy Schumer, Doug Benson, Lavell Crawford and winner Jon Reep). But Yashere already had plenty of successful experience with comedy contests in her native England, a finalist for the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year and then on The Big Big Talent Show. The daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Yashere rose from elevator engineer to sketch comedy player on The Lenny Henry Show, to the first and only British comedian to perform on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. She now lives in New York City, where she just released her newest stand-up special, Ticking Boxes, on Seeso, and began work at her new job as a correspondent on The Daily Show on Comedy Central. So let’s get to it!
The child of Afghan immigrants, Fahim Anwar grew up in Seattle, went to the University of Washington and got a job at Boeing in aerospace engineering to make his parents proud. But Anwar had a different dream, and no, I don’t mean the dancing machine Lance Cantstopolis. He took a job in Long Beach so he could drive to stand-up open mics in Los Angeles, and he was able to quit the day job once gigs on TV shows such as Chuck and Disaster Date proved he had staying power. He’s also performed on Conan, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Carmichael Show, @midnight, and the movie Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. His first one-hour special, There’s No Business Like Show Business, is out now on Seeso. Well, there’s no place to discuss the comedy business quite like the basement of The Comedy Store on the Sunset Strip, where Anwar and I could catch up and make sense of it all, so let’s get to it!
The Umbilical Brothers aren’t actually brothers, but the comedy bond between Australians Shane Dundas and David Collins has lasted for three decades and taken them all over the world with their dynamic duo act that mixes mime, slapstick and stand-up. They’ve performed on late-night for Letterman and Leno, after James Brown at Woodstock ’99, for the Queen of England, and most recently on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The Umbilical Brothers have a monthlong run of Speedmouse (re-squeaked), an updated version of their 2004 show, playing in New York City at Theatre 80, where I caught up with the fellas to find out how they’ve stuck together this long. So let’s get to it!
Kate Berlant and John Early are unique characters in stand-up comedy, and yet you almost always see them together, whether it’s in each other’s half-hour specials for Netflix’s The Characters, in their joint project for Vimeo, 555, or on the bill together on shows from New York City to Los Angeles and stops in between. Berlant was one of Variety magazine’s 10 Comics to Watch in 2015, filmed separate TV pilots for both Comedy Central and truTV, and hosts a monthly show at the UCB theater in Los Angeles. Early co-stars in the TBS series, Search Party, and appears in the Netflix series, Love, HBO’s Girls, and the Netflix series of Wet Hot American Summer. They share their story of making it together their own unique ways, so let’s get to it!
Emmy-nominated actor and comedian Billy Gardell starred in the hit CBS sitcom, Mike & Molly as Officer Mike Biggs for six seasons, and you can see him still in syndication there, as well as in his other previous recurring roles on Lucky; Yes, Dear; and My Name Is Earl. He now co-stars as the colorful Col. Tom Parker in the CMT series, Sun Records. But it almost didn’t happen for the journeyman stand-up comedian and Pittsburgh native, and Gardell tells me all about that and more. So let’s get to it!
Ritch Shydner had quite a run during the comedy boom of the 1980s, making multiple appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman, playing Al Bundy’s co-worker on Married With Children, appearing in small roles in big movies such as Roxanne and Beverly Hills Cop II, and writing for Roseanne, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, and The Mind of the Married Man. He’s also written jokes for Foxworthy, Ron White and Jay Leno. In 2006, he co-authored a book of outrageously true road stories from stand-up comedians, “I Killed,” and later performed in the great documentary on stand-up, “I Am Comic.” He’s got a new book out now, recounting not just his life in the 80s comedy boom, but everyone else’s, too. It’s called “Kicking Through the Ashes.” So let’s get to it!
Jo Firestone can be seen on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Chris Gethard Show, and heard on WFMU. Jo was recently named a New Face at the 2016 Just For Laughs Festival. And if you like puns, check out Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers, based on the live show she started with her father that’s been written up in The New Yorker. Jo has carved out her own charming niche in comedy, and frequently does so by mounting her own shows around New York City – among them, the NYC Annual Inner Beauty Pageant, the Unexpectashow, and The Incredible Game Show Showcase. You also can see her wonderfully weird web videos with Aparna Nancherla on RIOT’s YouTube channel. So let’s get to it!
Scott Aukerman got his first big break as a writer/performer on the HBO cult classic, Mr. Show with Bob and David. But he’s responsible for many more big breaks, not only as host of the Comedy Death Ray and Comedy Bang Bang live shows at M Bar and the UCB Theatre, but also as host of the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast and TV series on IFC, as well as the co-founder of the first major comedy podcasting network, Earwolf. He has won two Emmy Awards for making Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis, one for an episode which starred President Barack Obama, the other for an episode with Brad Pitt. He’s also met U2 thanks to his podcast with actor Adam Scott, and now makes Seeso streaming shows Bajillion Dollar Propertie$ and Take My Wife. His newest venture is Michael Bolton’s Big Sexy Valentine’s Day Special for Netflix. Aukerman spoke to me from his home with wife Kulap Vilaysack in the Hollywood Hills to explain the long and winding road his career has taken him on, so let’s get to it!
Mike Royce was a stand-up comedian and audience warm-up guy for The Maury Povich Show and Spin City before he broke through as a writer for the Sklar Brothers and their MTV series, Apartment 2F. He later helped his friend Ray Romano on a book and eventually his hit CBS sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond. Since then, Royce has gone on to run the shows for Louis CK’s Lucky Louie, TNT’s Men of a Certain Age, and FOX’s Enlisted. All of those are more heralded now than their ratings ever were, and Royce won the Peabody Award for co-creating Men of a Certain Age. Now he’s co-written and co-showrunning the new version of Norman Lear’s One Day at A Time, which is available exclusively on Netflix. So let’s get to it!
Matt Iseman was a jock when I first knew him as a college classmate of mine at Princeton. After graduation, Matt went to med school to become a doctor, only to diagnosis himself as a comedian. Since then, he has shared an Emmy win for the cable show, Clean House, hosted Sports Soup and Scream Play on E!, and appeared in TV ads and Transformers 2. But you know him best now as the host of NBC’s American Ninja Warrior, and he’s a contestant on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s season of Celebrity Apprentice on NBC. What’s it like to rub shoulders with Ahnold and a bunch of people who were famous when Matt was a kid? I asked him, so let’s get to it!
Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien and Kathryn Renée Thomas met in various Chicago improvisational theaters, and with a shared name and a dream between them, formed The Katydids. They’ve sold a sitcom to NBC and a feature film screenplay, but none of that might have been possible if their independent web series hadn’t caught viral fire first with the right people at the right time. Teachers led them to a deal with TV Land, an executive producer in Alison Brie, and showrunners in Ian Roberts and Jay Martel. Teachers begins its second season on TV Land in January 2017, and The Katydids met up with me in Viacom’s brand-new Hollywood office complex to share their journey. So let’s get to it!
Colin Quinn is the godfather of contemporary New York city comedy in more ways than one. After his first TV break as the sidekick on the 1980s MTV game show, Remote Control, Quinn helped usher other comedians onto TV as host of Caroline’s Comedy Hour on A&E, then a generation later as host of Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central. In between, Quinn wrote for In Living Color, co-wrote and produced the movie Celtic Pride, and became one of only a handful of comedians to anchor Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live. More recently, he’s hit Broadway and HBO with his show, Long Story Short, played Amy Schumer’s dad in the movie Trainwreck, ran a coffee shop on the HBO series Girls, starred in his own webseries, Cop Show, written a book, blew up Twitter and created two more critically-acclaimed one-man shows, Unconstitutional and The New York Story, both available on Netflix. He’s just filmed a new TV pilot and is hard at work on his next stage show. So let’s get to it!
Laurie Kilmartin produced one of the best stand-up specials of 2016, “45 Jokes About My Dead Dad,” streaming exclusively on Seeso.com. Kilmartin is a writer on Conan, a former finalist on Last Comic Standing, and the New York Times best-selling author of "Shtty Mom." You can hear her on the Nerdist podcast, The Jackie and Laurie Show*, with Jackie Kashian, where they talk about their lives as working comedians. But right now, you can hear Laurie talk to me in-depth about working through motherhood, tragedy and everything else. So let’s get to it!
Jason Zinoman is the comedy critic for The New York Times, and has written a new book about David Letterman which will come out April 2017. But first, Zinoman joined me once again to close the book on 2016. Who was the Most Valuable Performer in comedy in 2016? Who were the stand-out stand-ups? We discuss the year's work by Amy Schumer, Kate McKinnon, Jeff Ross, Maria Bamford, Tig Notaro, Donald Glover, Reggie Watts, Chris Rock and Louis CK, plus stars on the rise such as Rory Scovel, Kate Berlant, and John Early. And Zinoman also challenged me to define whether our current comedy boom is still booming, or whether the bubble is ready to bust. So let's get to it!
Nina Conti is the only child of actors – her father, Tom, is a Tony Award winner and Oscar nominee. As for Nina, she began her career as an actress at the Royal Shakespeare Company before her mentor Ken Campbell convinced her to become a ventriloquist. Nina won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2002, best show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2008, and has performed in many British TV shows since, as well as the HBO comedy series, Family Tree, with Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Chris O’Dowd. She’s made two documentaries, “Clowning Around” where she trained as a clown performing in a children’s hospital, and “Her Master’s Voice” where she took her mentor’s puppets to the official Vent Haven Museum in Kentucky. She spoke to me about vocal and theatrical acrobatics, which she puts on full display with great charm in her new improvised show, In Your Face, at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City for a limited time only. So let’s get to it!
There’s only one Sinbad the Sailor in fictional lore, and only one Sinbad worth knowing about in the funny business. There really is nobody quite like him, and we’ve seen it since he broke through in a big way on Star Search in the 1980s, through his role on the NBC Cosby spin-off sitcom, A Different World, through hosting It’s Showtime at the Apollo, through four separate HBO specials in the 1990s, and even through a short-lived reality series on WE TV and even a round with Donald Trump on Celebrity Apprentice more recently. He seems to be winging it up there onstage, but always crushing. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say he’s been jingling all the way. Sinbad sat down with me between shows at Carolines on Broadway to keep it 100 and then some. What does he have to say about Cosby, Trump, Redd Foxx and more? So let’s get to it!
Kevin McDonald is one of the original founders of The Kids in the Hall, the legendary sketch comedy troupe that started in Toronto, then became internationally famous over five seasons in the late 1980s and early 1990s thanks to HBO and later CBS. McDonald’s recurring characters included The King of Empty Promises, and Sir Simon Milligan, the host of the horror-themed TV show, The Pit of Ultimate Darkness. McDonald has guest-starred in many actual TV shows over the past two decades, reunited with Kids in the Hall for multiple tours (most recently in 2014), toured as a duo act with Scott Thompson, and gone solo as a stand-up, sketch comedy teacher and all-star guest improviser. He now has his very own podcast, a variety show called fittingly enough, Kevin McDonald’s Kevin McDonald Show. So let’s get to it!
Jessica Kirson has a captivating stage presence that bowls you over with laughter, whether you’re a schmuck in the front row or one of the so-called celebrities on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice. Kirson has a featured role onscreen and behind the scenes in the new Robert DeNiro movie about an aging insult comic called, The Comedian. She has also appeared on The Tonight Show, Last Comic Standing, The View, and Comedy Central, and guest starred this fall on the new CBS sitcom, Kevin Can Wait. I can’t wait to hear more about Kirson’s past, so let’s get to it!
Kirson also just launched a new podcast with her friend Frank Liotti, all about food addiction, called Fat Pig.
One of the all-time greatest cast members of Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey found his comedy greatness early, winning the San Francisco Comedy Competition when he was 22, then co-starring in a sitcom with Mickey Rooney and a young Nathan Lane, and a bit part in This Is Spinal Tap. Carvey joined SNL at the age of 31 and revolutionized the show’s impersonations by becoming President George H.W. Bush. Carvey also chopped broccoli, pumped you up with Hans and Franz, played Wayne’s sidekick Garth in Wayne’s World, and was and still is the Church Lady. Isn’t That Special? Yes. Yes, it is. Carvey came back in 2016 in a big way, presiding over a comedy game show on USA called First Impressions and releasing a new Netflix special, Straight White Male, 60.
It’s my pleasure to catch up with him, so let’s get to it!
Yousef Erakat has upward of 10 million YouTube subscribers for FouseyTube and won the 2016 Entertainer of the Year honors at the Streamy Awards, and yet he said during his acceptance speech at the Streamys that he might also be the most hated personality on YouTube. And still, he reads the comments. Yousef sat down with me to talk about how he went from theater classes to vlogging to prank videos and now to movie theaters. He appeared onscreen in 2016 in Tyler Perry’s Boo: A Medea Halloween, and stars in the new YouTube Red romantic comedy, We Love You. It’s out Nov. 22. So let’s get to it!
Dan Levy started comedy at the age of 9 and was competing at the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen while still a college student at Emerson College. Levy has toured with Aziz Ansari, John Mulaney and Whitney Cummings, and his 2012 album for Comedy Central, “Congrats on Your Success” debuted at #1 on iTunes. He co-starred on HBO’s Enlightened, and has hosted two shows in the past year, the stage show “Baby Talk” for JASH and the stand-up showcase show “Coming to the Stage” for Hulu. He’s currently a writer for ABC’s hit sitcom, The Goldbergs, and his first hour comedy special, Lion, premieres in November 2016 on Seeso. So let’s get to it!
Before we ever heard about Trevor Noah in America, Loyiso Gola was the star of his own TV satire in South Africa, Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola. He appeared in a PBS documentary in 2014 hosted by The Daily Show’s Hasan Minhaj called Stand Up Planet, and now in 2016, Gola is ready for his global close-up. His first stand-up special, Live in New York, is the first solo comedy special presented by Vimeo, and Gola sat down with me just after the New York Comedy Festival to talk about his journey and how to create your own comedy scene no matter where you are in the world. So let’s get to it!
Rory Albanese joined The Daily Show with Jon Stewart shortly after graduating from college in 1999, and rose from the ranks to become executive producer by the time he left in 2013, and was the showrunner for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, also on Comedy Central, where you also started to see him more in front of the camera as a contributor and panelist. He released his first half-hour stand-up special in 2010. So what’s next for Albanese? I asked him, so let’s get to it!
Nicole Byer first captured the comedy world’s attention as part of the improv group, Doppelganger, which also featured future Saturday Night Live player Sasheer Zamata. Byer co-starred in a late-night sketch show on FOX produced by The Lonely Island called Party Over Here. She’s also appeared on Lady Dynamite, Transparent, 30 Rock and the movie, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Nicole’s relationship with MTV began with appearances in webseries, then on TV with Girl Code and Ladylike, and now her own starring series based on her life, Loosely Exactly Nicole. She caught up with me before her first-season finale, so let’s get to it!
This episode is sponsored by Seeso, and by the Impractical Jokers.
Norman Lear is a television legend. Writer, producer and creator of all-time classic sitcoms of the 1970s – including All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times, and Maude. Lear made satire tackling race, class, and gender inequalities and things that matter to people, at a time when nobody else on TV dared to do so. At one point, he had five of the top nine TV shows in America. Lear left TV to found the progressive organization, People For the American Way, and later purchased the actual Declaration of Independence so Americans of all ages could still see it. Now 94, a new documentary about him from American Masters, “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and it’ll make its broadcast debut Oct. 25, 2016, on PBS.
So let's get to it!
You first saw Joe Rogan on the classic NBC sitcom NewsRadio, then later as host of the competition show Fear Factor. Now not only can you see him commentating on UFC fights, but also hear and see him on his hit podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. His latest stand-up special, Triggered, is exclusively out now on Netflix.
Rogan recounts the key moments in his career, from making the leap of teaching taekwondo to stand-up comedy in Boston in the late 1980s, to surviving his first failed sitcom experience in Los Angeles, lessons learned from an infamous takedown of Carlos Mencia and sticking up for the underdogs, to building his own electronic independence via message boards and podcasts. So let's get to it!
Miranda Sings has been telling Haters to back off since she first uploaded a hilariously bad cover of Aretha Franklin’s Respect in late 2007. Since then, she has accumulated more than 7 million YouTube subscribers and one billion views of her videos – more than 5.1 million Instagram followers, 3.67 million Twitter followers and 2 million Facebook fans – and just launched an eight-episode series called Haters Back Off! On Netflix. She’s the brainchild alter-ego of singer Colleen Ballinger, who has millions of fans and followers for her real-life pages, too. She developed her funny new Netflix series alongside her brother, Chris, and it co-stars Angela Kinsey and Steve Little as Miranda’s mother and uncle, who are blindly devoted to helping the homeschooled Miranda achieve her dreams of stardom. How did Colleen Ballinger pull this all off? She tells me her true story of talent, hard work and determination, so let’s get to it!
Derek Waters is the co-creator and star of Drunk History, which has won both an Emmy and a Sundance Film Festival award and is now in its fourth season on Comedy Central after appearing on Funny or Die and HBO. A fifth season is forthcoming. But Drunk History wasn’t even the first successful webseries from Waters; he previously collaborated with Bob Odenkirk and The Big Bang Theory’s Simon Helberg on “Derek and Simon,” which actually was an HBO pilot before it became a webseries. And before that, Waters co-starred on a network TV sitcom for ABC (“Married to the Kellys”). If that history sounds confusing sober, just wait until you try to retell it drunk. Or just ask Derek Waters yourself. Like I did. So let’s get to it!
Cue the bugle sounds and put your puns where we can see them, because Andy Zaltzman is my guest today. Zaltzmanis a critically-acclaimed comedian in the UK where he has been performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe since 1999 and collaborating with John Oliver since 2001 — they created the hugely popular podcast, The Bugle, in 2007, only stopping earlier in 2016 when it became acutely apparent that Oliver’s Emmy-winning work on HBO’s Last Week Tonight had made him too busy to continue working with Zaltzman. Zaltzman is relaunching The Bugle on Oct. 21, 2016, with a rotating lineup of all-star guest cohosts featuring comedians from around the globe. He also has brought his interactive political comedy show, Satirist For Hire, to the United States for the first time — he’ll be taking requests in advance from audience members via email and performing unique satire for audiences across North America in the month leading up to the 2016 elections. Zaltzman sat down with me after his New York City tour stop to talk satire, crickets, puns and more. So let’s get to it!
Today’s guest, Tony Hendra, began his career at Cambridge University with the famed Footlights as the comedy partner of Graham Chapman, and starred in the annual revue with Chapman and John Cleese. He came to the United States as a duo act with Nick Ullett, appearing multiple times on The Ed Sullivan Show and Merv Griffin, before splitting up and taking a job as the first editor hired by the founders of National Lampoon. While there, he made the Lampoon’s first album, Radio Dinner, with Michael O’Donoghue, and followed that up by giving John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest their first starring roles in the Lampoon’s off-Broadway hit, Lemmings. Hendra appeared in This Is Spinal Tap, playing the band’s manager, co-created and co-produced the British TV satire, Spitting Image, and served as Editor-in-Chief of Spy Magazine from 1993-1994. He has written four books, including the posthumous memoir of George Carlin, “Last Words,” and for the past several years has led a new satirical operation called The Final Edition. He’s just put out a new comedy album with the Lampoon, “Are There Any Triggers Here Tonight?” There’s a lot of great comedy history and stories to get to, so let’s get to it!
With the 2016 election careening toward Judgment Day, Lewis Black is back on Broadway this fall, giving voice to the grand majority of Americans and citizens worldwide perplexed at our politics and our political discussion. Black is performing “Black to the Future” Monday nights on Broadway, and heading out on the road for tour dates across the country in between, delivering his comedic rants and interacting with fans both in his live audience and livestreaming online. Black called in to ShowBriz Studios to talk about what’s happening now, and how he found his way from playwriting to stand-up comedy, through three hosts of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to now. So let’s get to it!
Gary Owen is the only white comic to host BET’s Comic View, and many years later, he’s bringing his whole family to the network in the reality series, The Gary Owen Show, debuting in October 2016. Not something you might have expected from a kid growing up in a trailer park with an abusive stepfather in southern Ohio. Gary always wanted to be a stand-up comedian, but he enlisted in the Navy straight out of high school. It was only when he was stationed in San Diego that he could use his leave hours to hit the comedy clubs there and in Los Angeles for open mics. He talks to me about all of that, how he sustained himself in the decade between getting a role in the Jamie Foxx movie Held Up and his eventual success with House of Payne and the Think Like a Man films, and how the death of his brother from a drug overdose changed Gary’s outlook on comedy. All of that, plus Gary’s decision to have his black wife and mixed-race children on camera with him in BET’s The Gary Owen Show. So let’s get to it!
Hosting duties are nothing new for Ben Gleib. He’s been doing that since he was a teenager, rubbing elbows with Hollywood stars and their children in Beverly Hills High School. Gleib’s college talk show became a national sensation thanks to The National Lampoon, eventually scoring him a TV pilot on FOX produced by Lorne Michaels. After appearing hundreds of times on panels with Chelsea Lately and The Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda, Gleib has hosted the Game Show Network’s Idiotest for the past two years. You’ve heard his voice on the big-screen in the animated hit, Ice Age: Continental Drift, as well as hosting his own podcast, Last Week On Earth. His first stand-up comedy special, Neurotic Gangster, premiered this summer on Showtime, and Gleib sat down with me during Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival to talk about his journey. So let’s get to it!
Godfrey was born in Nebraska to Nigerian parents who had fled that country’s civil war in the late 1960s.Godfrey grew up in Chicago, which is also where he started pursuing comedy – despite his pre-med psychology degree at the University of Illinois – and where he filmed his newest hour of stand-up comedy, Regular Black, for Showtime. You also may have seen Godfrey in memorable roles on the big screen in Zoolander, Soul Plane and Johnson Family Vacation, or the small screen as the 7-Up spokesman, multiple episodes of Louie, and before all of that, a Bravo reality show that followed aspiring actors that also included future Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner. Godfrey talks to me about all of that, plus working with Bill Cosby, in a lively if not also distracting conversation amid the hubbub of Union Square pedestrian traffic.
So let’s get to it!
Ms. Pat’s early career sounds a little bit like the role Sally Field’s in the 1988 movie about comedy, Punchline, except only Ms. Pat grew up in a bootleg house in Atlanta, became a mother of two by the time she was 15, sold drugs, was shot twice, and arrested multiple times all before she met her future husband at 19. Her husband brought her stability. Her comedy brought her joy and a newfound purpose in life. How she made that transition, from a big break opening for Katt Williams, through her first time appearing on radio’s Bob and Tom Show, through 2015 where she appeared on NBC’s Last Comic Standing and Comedy Central’s This is Not Happening. All of that, and how far Ms. Pat has come just in the six years since her first trip to Montreal as a New Face in 2010, she shares it all with me now.
Since our chat, Ms. Pat has received a put-pilot commitment from FOX to make a half-hour sitcom about her life, starring her and executive produced by Lee Daniels and Brian Grazer.
So let’s get to it!
Bert Kreischer is my special guest today, in an episode recorded in front of a live audience at the 2016 Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. He literally is the “Life of the Party.” That’s the title of his 2014 memoir — it describes how Bert's life changed as a sixth-year senior at Florida State University when Rolling Stone magazine visited and profiled him. That magazine article became the basis for the film, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, starring Ryan Reynolds as a buffer Bert. Kreischer currently hosts two different TV series for the Travel Channel: Bert the Conquerer, and Trip Flip.
Kreischer talks with me about how Oliver Stone and Will Smith served as his entry points to show business, how his first attempt in stand-up went awry before he found Barry Katz and his Boston Comedy Club, and proves himself to be as much a lover of comedy as he is of life and travel.
So let’s get to it!
Variety magazine named Cameron Esposito one of the 10 Comics to Watch in 2016, and there already has been a lot to see of Esposito this year – from her appearances on the big screen in Garry Marshall’s final film, “Mother’s Day,” to the small-screen on IFC’s Maron, performing stand-up on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and her first stand-up special, Marriage Material, on SeeSo. She’s got two other movie roles that brought her to Sundance this past winter, in “Operator” and in “First Girl I Loved.” With her wife Rhea Butcher, Esposito hosts a live comedy showcase and podcast each Tuesday at the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles, Put Your Hands Together, made a webseries for Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls called She Said, and will debut their first scripted series together, Take My Wife, this August on SeeSo. If that’s not enough, Esposito is writing her first book as well as developing a TV series for FX. There’s a lot more to her story, and I recalled some of it that even made news to her.
So let’s get to it!
Hari Kondabolu and I go back to the scene of his very first big break, showcasing for the 2007 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and HBO, how that all happened, and how he managed to take a year off afterward to earn his master’s degree from the London School of Economics. Kondabolu since has enjoyed time writing and performing for late-night TV with Totally Biased, and just this summer launched a new podcast, Politically Re-Active, with his former boss, W. Kamau Bell. Kondabolu also just released his second stand-up comedy album, Mainstream American Comic, is working on a documentary about Apu from The Simpsons, and has a deal to develop his own TV series for TruTV. We talk about all of that and more, so let’s get to it!
Of all of the characters in Mike Birbiglia’s wonderfully true and funny film, Don’t Think Twice, Chris Gethard’s runs closest to his own. Gethard began taking improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade when he was only 20, and quickly became a darling of the UCB community, eventually starting a beloved improv team that saw one of its members — his friend Bobby Moynihan — leave for Saturday Night Live. Unlike both the movie and the title of Gethard’s one-man show, Career Suicide, Chris has continued to flourish. He has a stand-up comedy album, a book, and hosts a hit podcast, Beautfiul/Anonymous. On TV, you’ve seen Chris Gethard in supporting roles on Inside Amy Schumer, Broad City, and The Office; and on the big screen in The Heat and The Other Guys. He’s taken The Chris Gerhard Show from the basement of the UCB to Manhattan cable access to two seasons on TV with Fusion. This August, he’s taking his one-man show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But first he sat with me to talk about his journey.
So let’s get to it!
Christian Finnegan co-stars in a new weekly show on A&E with Sherrod Small called Black and White, where over the course of the first eight episodes, they’ll deconstruct today’s headlines through the prism of race relations. Finnegan and Small cracked wise about less serious matters for years as part of VH1’s Best Week Ever. Christian talks to me about finding his way into stand-up comedy, how Jim Gaffigan provided him with an early break — Finnegan serves as a consultant and frequently guest stars on Gaffigan’s TV land series. Perhaps Christian’s earliest big break came by appearing on Chappelle’s Show, and we also talk about how sometimes the career path we were looking for was right in front of us the whole time. So let’s get to it!
The annual Del Close Marathon brings the founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade together along with thousands of performers from around the world, celebrating their late improv guru Del Close by improvising comedy shows around the clock for a three-day-and-night weekend. In its 18th year, the UCB4 – Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh – opened the proceedings with a legitimate press conference, which allowed me to ask questions not only of them, but also to founding member and Saturday Night Live alum Horatio Sanz, plus actor John Gemberling, TV marathoner and Snapchat wizard Gil Ozeri, and Thank You Del documentary filmmakers Todd Bieber and Julie Gomez. So let’s get to it!
Here’s what I know about Yannis Pappas. He’s a native New Yorker. He’s gotten shot. He’s a sneakerhead. He’s Greek. In fact, so Greek he has performed in character as Mr. Panos, which is not to be confused with when he performs as a Puerto Rican transsexual named Maurica (More-eeesa). Pappas moved to Miami to help launch the Fusion cable network as co-anchor of the TV station’s live primetime news program, then moved back to NYC year later, where he has hosted the AOL original series, 2 Point Lead. He filmed a half-hour for Comedy Central in 2014, and his first stand-up comedy CD, Let Me Be Yannis, is out now. Who is Yannis, though, and how much of Mr. Panos and Maurica is still inside of him? I tried to find out. So let’s get to it!
Robert Kelly plays the Heathens drummer Bam Bam on Denis Leary’s FX series, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, which begins its second season this summer, and popularized the double-meal deal, Bang Bang, playing Louis CK’s brother Bobby on the award-winning FX series, Louie. He hilariously chastised me for combining the two things, Bam Bam! Bang Bang!! More importantly, though, Bobby caught me up on how he got clean and sober 30 years ago as a teenager living just north of Boston, emerging as a love of art, women and comedy. He tells of how he formed an improv group that auditioned and welcomed a young Dane Cook, culminating in their historically hysterically bad gig at Boston Garden, how Bobby started over again in stand-up, and rooming with Bill Burr when he moved to New York City. Robert Kelly only recently found his own true comedy voice, and has doubled-down on it – not only selling his 2014 stand-up concert film on his own site and terms, but also founding his own podcast network, Riotcast. You Know What Dude? Bam Bam. Bang Bang. Either way, Robert Kelly is always up for a great chat. So let’s get to it!
Welcome to our 100th episode together of The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First. This isn’t like the other episodes, and not just because it’s our 100th episode – I mean, is any sit-down with Doug Stanhope normal, exactly? Even though Stanhope and I haven’t sat down together in more than five years, he called me out the second he saw me across the room at the end of his own podcast at the inaugural Skankfest in Long Island City. “He’s going to ask me questions,” Stanhope announced to the crowd. “And I’m going to dodge all of them.” And yet. Stanhope graciously sat down with me between drinks on the back patio of The Creek and The Cave and answered more than a few – the others, he simply yelled, “It’s in the book!” That book is “Digging Up Mother: A Love Story,” out now, with a foreward from his famous friend, Johnny Depp. Depp wasn’t around this past weekend, but Stanhope did dig up Rich Vos for a fun cameo that really puts me in my place. We're going to Keep It 100...So let’s get to it!
Gary Gulman is the tallest funniest Jew I know, and I’ve known him personally since 2004, when he competed on seasons two and three of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Gulman went to Boston College on a football scholarship but found his end zone in stand-up comedy a few months after graduation. He has recorded three comedy albums and three hour-specials for TV consumption – his latest, the brilliant “It’s About Time,” debuted this spring on Netflix. It’s about time I sat down with Gary and shared more of his life story with you. So let’s get to it!
Jay Oakerson’s first TV credit was on BET. Big Jay started stand-up comedy in all-black rooms in Philadelphia, and now he’s playing to everyone while often relying on his sharp wit to riff with the crowds in the moment. He hosts an all-crowd-work series “Big Jay Oakerson’s What’s Your F@#king Deal,” on the NBC digital comedy platform SeeSo, and his previous credits include multiple stories on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening, and appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Comedy Underground with Dave Attell. Big Jay currently co-hosts “The Bonfire” on SiriusXM satellite radio every Monday and Wednesday with fellow comedian Dan Soder, and also co-hosts the Legion of Skanks podcast with friends Luis J. Gomez and Dave Smith. They’re throwing their first anti-comedy festival, Skankfest, this June in Long Island City, NY – and Big Jay Oakerson’s first hourlong TV special, Live at Webster Hall, is premiering on Comedy Central. So let’s get to it!
Matt Balaker is writing a book about Greg Giraldo; scratch that, he’s writing THE book on Greg Giraldo, as there hasn’t been a proper biography about the outrageously witty stand-up comedian since he died in 2010 at the age of only 44. Balaker, a comedian himself, has interviewed more than 25 people close to Giraldo – from his former managers, friends, comedians, and his widowed ex-wife – and successfully received Kickstarter funding to finish the Greg Giraldo Book, along with a co-author Wayne Jones. Balaker sat down with me to explain how he got involved in this project, what he’s learned along the way, and asked me to share my own thoughts on Giraldo. So let’s get to it!
Kevin Bartini is a stand-up comedian and writer who audiences see first when they attend tapings of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central. Bartini also has warmed up TV audiences for The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and sometimes now The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He also hosts The Movie Preview Review podcast (part of the ShowBriz Studios network), and spearheaded the years-long effort to successfully rename the New York City block George Carlin grew up on as George Carlin Way. Bartini is in a new Off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream timed to help us ring in the summer of 2016. So let’s get to it!
At 83, Dick Gregory remains an active comedy legend, logging more than 200 stand-up gigs a year. Gregory changed the game in 1961 when he performed at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club in Chicago, and the notoriety of becoming the first black comedian to play to white crowds led him soon thereafter to become the first black performer to sit on the couch with Jack Paar when he was host of The Tonight Show on NBC. His 1963 autobiography was a best-seller, and in 1968, he received the fifth-most votes for President of the United States as a write-in candidate. He has remained politically active and topical to this day. Dick Gregory sat down with me in the green room at Carolines on Broadway before going onstage, and told me not only about how racism impacted his life and career decisions before comedy, but also how Hefner changed his life, and finally, his thoughts on the passing of Muhammad Ali and the prosecution and persecution of Bill Cosby. Yes, Dick Gregory went there. He’s as thought-provoking as ever. So let's get to it!