December 7, 2025 • 9 mins
Johnny Mac reviews Vulture's Best Comedy Specials of 2025 list. He provides real-time reactions and shares his own preliminary list of top specials. Do they have Marc Maron too low (yes), do they have Bill Burr too high (yes) and will they be proved right about this Kumail Nanjiani special?
The official DCN List will be the December 13th epsiode.
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The official DCN List will be the December 13th epsiode.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/daily-comedy-news-with-johnny-mac--4522158/support.
Contact John at John@thesharkdeck dot com
Thanks to our sponsors!
Raycon Earbuds
Underdog Fantasy Promo Code DCN
Blue Chew Promo Code DCN
Talkspace promo code Space 80
For Uninterrupted Listening, use the Apple Podcast App and click the banner that says Uninterrupted Listening. $4.99/month
John's Substack about media is free.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Calorokashock Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily
comedy news. Is gonna lead off today taking a look
at Vulture's best comedy specials of twenty twenty five. I
usually don't agree with them. It doesn't mean that I'm
right and there wrong, or they're right and I'm wrong.
(00:24):
It's just a list. My list is just a list.
I will have my list for you on Saturday if
you're new to the show. When I do these list episodes,
when I'm commenting on other people's lists, I don't look
at them in advance. I like to react in the
moment to things so twofold from my own list. I
want to make sure I didn't forget anything. And a
good way to make sure you don't forget anything is
to look at someone else's list. So we'll jump in
(00:46):
the pool here. There are so many comedy specials I clearly,
and if you listen to your list, I don't see
them all. If you include the YouTube quote unquote specials
recorded to the chuckle hut, forget it, you'd never get
through it all. I do try to watch the majors
on the bigger streamers. So let's see what Vulture likes here,
and they probably got some screeners that I haven't been
able to get access to. I tried to reach out
(01:08):
to the HBO people to get a couple things and
just couldn't get anywhere. It's so hard to even get
through to a human. There was one website I was on.
It was like, who's recommending you to even log into
this press website? I was like, all right, relax, relax.
Vulture writes many of this year's best comedy special share
a reflective sense of mid career reconsideration. The most striking
of these is from Kamil Nanjianni, whose special Night Thoughts
(01:30):
allows him to reassess his career and relationship with comedy
after more than a decade away from regular stand up. Okay,
here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's
on Hulu and it's not out till December nineteenth, and
as we all know, the Hulu publicists will not get
back to me. So that's a good example of something
that's on a list that I haven't seen. Apparently it's
pretty good, according to Vulture, they write for other comedians.
(01:53):
The retrospective meditation is about grappling with existential dread rather
than non Gianni's focus on the trap of his external
public persona. They name check specials by Berbiglia, Maren Cameron, Esposito,
Bill Burr. Then they write Otsko at Kotska's Father on Earthquakes,
joke telling Business are also reflections on their comedic identities,
but they operate without the same wistful existentialism. Meanwhile, Steph
(02:15):
Tolev's filth Queen and Jordan Jensen's Take Me with You,
or a matched pair of specials on human debasement. Let's
jump in all right, they have at number ten Jordan
Jensen's Take Me with You from Netflix. They write, no
other comedy special this year accomplishes quite the same mixture
of emotion that Jordan Jensen's does. Jordan's appeal is how
transparent she can make the glass while peering into her
(02:36):
own brain, and there's no question that what's going on
in there is darker than most other comedians work right now,
up to and including Bill Burr's lengthy thoughts on death.
Now I'm checking my notes. I feel like I had
hit play on this and bailed on it. But I
also have in my best of list. Personally, I have
a section called not on list, and I don't see
that I wrote this down. I do think I hit
(02:56):
play on it and wasn't feeling it again, these are
just list so vultures. Number ten as Jordan Jensen's Take
Me with You. I've added it to my list of
things to put eyes on. At number nine, they have
earthquakes joke telling Business. I did not hit play on that.
You'll find that on Netflix. Just earthquakes not really my thing.
They write catchphrases or a high wire act. They deliberately
(03:18):
swim upstream against the current fashion for naturalism and stand
up sets. But the catchphrase in Earthquakes Joke Telling Business
is really canny. As he talks about his family, black fatherhood,
marriage and immigration politics, he keeps inserting the same pivot
line between each section. These ain't jokes. Number eight Ian
Edwards untitled on YouTube. Okay, see, I'm glad I'm doing
this list. This was not on my radar at all.
(03:40):
Great and I love this description. Ian Edwards reinvents no
comedy wheels in untitled. This is a YouTube special shot
at the comedy store where a guy stands next to
a stool tells jokes about relationships hotel check in lines
and gender reveal parties. I will add that to my
checkout list. Good job so far. Vulture. Number seven, they
have Bill Burr's Drop Dead Years. Absolutely no, it's Bill
(04:01):
Burr's worst special. I'm not even going to couch. It
is not his best, it's his worst. This is a
bad pick. This is one of the specials that makes
me say, Hulu is where you go to do your
comedy special when you're on the way down. So that
could be a warning for Kamil Nan Johnny as well.
I can't agree with you here on Bill Burr Vulture Road.
Is there anything better, sharper, more ticklish, or more thrilling
than Bill Burr doing comedy about he's slowly realizing that
(04:23):
he and everyone else will eventually die. Yeah, I can
name twenty five other specials this year that's better than that. Sorry,
I normally like Bill Burr specials. When that one. Number six,
they have Otsko at Kotska's Father on Hulu. I think
I have that one in my middle tier. I mean check, yes,
I have that as number two in my middle tier.
And again I'll do my list next weekend. It's on Hulu.
(04:46):
I liked Otsco's previous special better than this one. That
seems to be the theme that I find with Hulari's specials.
They did pull out the best joke in the set,
which always seems to get pulled out. Otsco tells it better,
but she says, I asked my husband how to turn
on the washing machine, and that's how he realized that
he'd been doing the laundry all these years, which is
a great joke. And I got to take a break
(05:07):
at some point, so halfway seems to make sense. Be
right back. Taking a look at Vulture's Best comedy Specials
of twenty twenty five, at number five, they have Mark
Maren's Panicked, which I'm I'm gonna have at number one.
I don't see what's going to pass this. This is
peak Mark Marin was an HBO special. Vulture Rights. It's
not exactly Mark Maron's fault that he's become such a
(05:29):
great comedian for this moment in history. At another time,
a perpetually anxious comedian who can't keep from ranting about
his paranoid worries about the end of the world probably
would not feel like such a helpful guide to life.
Maren's new special speaks to a national mood better than
anyone else this year. I wonder why they have this
so low. Number four, Cameron Esposito has Four Pills. I
do like Cameron a lot, but this one is on
dropout and I don't have dropout, so I haven't seen it.
(05:52):
Vulture says, calling Four Pills a special about the pandemic
is unfair. Cameron's New Hours about marriage, divorce to Spare
ag retrieval's mental health, and what it's like to discover
things about yourself after the age of forty. Number three,
they have Mike Birbigli as the Good Life. I don't
really dig what Birbiglia does. I do have it in
my middle tier at number five, and I wrote civilians
(06:14):
will like it. I'm a comedy snob and I don't
really like these shows that Birbigley does. It's just not
my style of thing. I get that people like it.
These are just lists, but this will not make my
top ten, Vulture says, given Birbiglia's track record, it's not
exactly a surprise to turn a New Hour and discover
a painstakingly crafted meditation on the meaning of life. But
(06:36):
it's still a magic trick every time it happens, and
by embracing a more casual mundanity, the good life sneaks
its way into the top tier of Verbiglia's work. See
I think that magic trick line. They're saying it as
a compliment. That's my problem. I just feel like it's
a performance. And I understand all these things are a performance.
But like when she and Gillis gets up there and
I understand these are written jokes and he's performing them, well,
(06:59):
I just feel like he checking and driving these of
the room. I always feel like Berbiglia is performing a
stage played. It's very, very crafted. It's just not my thing,
but fine. On number two they have stef Toolev's Filth Queen.
You'll find that on Netflix. I have that in my
personal not on list section. The title gives it away.
It's just not my thing. Vulture rights. Filth Queen does
(07:20):
exactly what it says on the tin. It is proudly
and thoroughly gross. Steff Toolev catalogs the many horrible qualities
of the human body with the care and consideration of
an obsessive collector. Each fort is treasured for its own uniqualities.
Et cetera, et cetera. Not my thing, not interested in that.
And they have number one Kamil Nanjianni's Night Thoughts again
on Hulu December nineteenth. Haven't seen it, Who's not going
(07:42):
to get back to me? Who knows Vulture rights? He
probably could have rolled up to an hour long standup
special taping, delivered a half hearted life update, and walked
away mostly on scathe. Instead. Night Thoughts slices deep into
his last decade, carefully excavating how fame in the public
eye have changed how he sees himself. Vulture has some
other how many highlights from the year. They have listed
Brent Weinbach's Popular Culture on YouTube, Rosebud Baker's The Mother
(08:06):
Load on Netflix, and Roywood Junior's Lonely Flowers are the
other three they spotlighted. Now, if you're relatively new to
the show, I could totally fairly imagine you right now going, John,
do you even watch comedy specials? Because I mentioned I
didn't see a lot of the ones that Vulture liked,
I'll fly down my list really quickly. Right now. I
(08:26):
have it as Marin, Kevin Hart, Riife, Jim Jeffries, Justin
Willman's Magic Lover, John Marco, Moe Ammer, Dusty Slay, Kreischer,
Brett Goldstein, remember that one was real good. Michelle Wolf,
Sarah Silverman, Matt McCusker, Mattelane, and Tim Dillon would be
my fifteen top right now, and then I've got nine
more in my middle tier and a whole bunch on
(08:47):
my no thank you list. But again, I will do
that next week. It'll be out on my substack, and
it'll be an episode or two in this feed. And
that is your comedy news on a Sunday. Have a
great day.
Calorokashock Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily
comedy news. Is gonna lead off today taking a look
at Vulture's best comedy specials of twenty twenty five. I
usually don't agree with them. It doesn't mean that I'm
right and there wrong, or they're right and I'm wrong.
(00:24):
It's just a list. My list is just a list.
I will have my list for you on Saturday if
you're new to the show. When I do these list episodes,
when I'm commenting on other people's lists, I don't look
at them in advance. I like to react in the
moment to things so twofold from my own list. I
want to make sure I didn't forget anything. And a
good way to make sure you don't forget anything is
to look at someone else's list. So we'll jump in
(00:46):
the pool here. There are so many comedy specials I clearly,
and if you listen to your list, I don't see
them all. If you include the YouTube quote unquote specials
recorded to the chuckle hut, forget it, you'd never get
through it all. I do try to watch the majors
on the bigger streamers. So let's see what Vulture likes here,
and they probably got some screeners that I haven't been
able to get access to. I tried to reach out
(01:08):
to the HBO people to get a couple things and
just couldn't get anywhere. It's so hard to even get
through to a human. There was one website I was on.
It was like, who's recommending you to even log into
this press website? I was like, all right, relax, relax.
Vulture writes many of this year's best comedy special share
a reflective sense of mid career reconsideration. The most striking
of these is from Kamil Nanjianni, whose special Night Thoughts
(01:30):
allows him to reassess his career and relationship with comedy
after more than a decade away from regular stand up. Okay,
here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. It's
on Hulu and it's not out till December nineteenth, and
as we all know, the Hulu publicists will not get
back to me. So that's a good example of something
that's on a list that I haven't seen. Apparently it's
pretty good, according to Vulture, they write for other comedians.
(01:53):
The retrospective meditation is about grappling with existential dread rather
than non Gianni's focus on the trap of his external
public persona. They name check specials by Berbiglia, Maren Cameron, Esposito,
Bill Burr. Then they write Otsko at Kotska's Father on Earthquakes,
joke telling Business are also reflections on their comedic identities,
but they operate without the same wistful existentialism. Meanwhile, Steph
(02:15):
Tolev's filth Queen and Jordan Jensen's Take Me with You,
or a matched pair of specials on human debasement. Let's
jump in all right, they have at number ten Jordan
Jensen's Take Me with You from Netflix. They write, no
other comedy special this year accomplishes quite the same mixture
of emotion that Jordan Jensen's does. Jordan's appeal is how
transparent she can make the glass while peering into her
(02:36):
own brain, and there's no question that what's going on
in there is darker than most other comedians work right now,
up to and including Bill Burr's lengthy thoughts on death.
Now I'm checking my notes. I feel like I had
hit play on this and bailed on it. But I
also have in my best of list. Personally, I have
a section called not on list, and I don't see
that I wrote this down. I do think I hit
(02:56):
play on it and wasn't feeling it again, these are
just list so vultures. Number ten as Jordan Jensen's Take
Me with You. I've added it to my list of
things to put eyes on. At number nine, they have
earthquakes joke telling Business. I did not hit play on that.
You'll find that on Netflix. Just earthquakes not really my thing.
They write catchphrases or a high wire act. They deliberately
(03:18):
swim upstream against the current fashion for naturalism and stand
up sets. But the catchphrase in Earthquakes Joke Telling Business
is really canny. As he talks about his family, black fatherhood,
marriage and immigration politics, he keeps inserting the same pivot
line between each section. These ain't jokes. Number eight Ian
Edwards untitled on YouTube. Okay, see, I'm glad I'm doing
this list. This was not on my radar at all.
(03:40):
Great and I love this description. Ian Edwards reinvents no
comedy wheels in untitled. This is a YouTube special shot
at the comedy store where a guy stands next to
a stool tells jokes about relationships hotel check in lines
and gender reveal parties. I will add that to my
checkout list. Good job so far. Vulture. Number seven, they
have Bill Burr's Drop Dead Years. Absolutely no, it's Bill
(04:01):
Burr's worst special. I'm not even going to couch. It
is not his best, it's his worst. This is a
bad pick. This is one of the specials that makes
me say, Hulu is where you go to do your
comedy special when you're on the way down. So that
could be a warning for Kamil Nan Johnny as well.
I can't agree with you here on Bill Burr Vulture Road.
Is there anything better, sharper, more ticklish, or more thrilling
than Bill Burr doing comedy about he's slowly realizing that
(04:23):
he and everyone else will eventually die. Yeah, I can
name twenty five other specials this year that's better than that. Sorry,
I normally like Bill Burr specials. When that one. Number six,
they have Otsko at Kotska's Father on Hulu. I think
I have that one in my middle tier. I mean check, yes,
I have that as number two in my middle tier.
And again I'll do my list next weekend. It's on Hulu.
(04:46):
I liked Otsco's previous special better than this one. That
seems to be the theme that I find with Hulari's specials.
They did pull out the best joke in the set,
which always seems to get pulled out. Otsco tells it better,
but she says, I asked my husband how to turn
on the washing machine, and that's how he realized that
he'd been doing the laundry all these years, which is
a great joke. And I got to take a break
(05:07):
at some point, so halfway seems to make sense. Be
right back. Taking a look at Vulture's Best comedy Specials
of twenty twenty five, at number five, they have Mark
Maren's Panicked, which I'm I'm gonna have at number one.
I don't see what's going to pass this. This is
peak Mark Marin was an HBO special. Vulture Rights. It's
not exactly Mark Maron's fault that he's become such a
(05:29):
great comedian for this moment in history. At another time,
a perpetually anxious comedian who can't keep from ranting about
his paranoid worries about the end of the world probably
would not feel like such a helpful guide to life.
Maren's new special speaks to a national mood better than
anyone else this year. I wonder why they have this
so low. Number four, Cameron Esposito has Four Pills. I
do like Cameron a lot, but this one is on
dropout and I don't have dropout, so I haven't seen it.
(05:52):
Vulture says, calling Four Pills a special about the pandemic
is unfair. Cameron's New Hours about marriage, divorce to Spare
ag retrieval's mental health, and what it's like to discover
things about yourself after the age of forty. Number three,
they have Mike Birbigli as the Good Life. I don't
really dig what Birbiglia does. I do have it in
my middle tier at number five, and I wrote civilians
(06:14):
will like it. I'm a comedy snob and I don't
really like these shows that Birbigley does. It's just not
my style of thing. I get that people like it.
These are just lists, but this will not make my
top ten, Vulture says, given Birbiglia's track record, it's not
exactly a surprise to turn a New Hour and discover
a painstakingly crafted meditation on the meaning of life. But
(06:36):
it's still a magic trick every time it happens, and
by embracing a more casual mundanity, the good life sneaks
its way into the top tier of Verbiglia's work. See
I think that magic trick line. They're saying it as
a compliment. That's my problem. I just feel like it's
a performance. And I understand all these things are a performance.
But like when she and Gillis gets up there and
I understand these are written jokes and he's performing them, well,
(06:59):
I just feel like he checking and driving these of
the room. I always feel like Berbiglia is performing a
stage played. It's very, very crafted. It's just not my thing,
but fine. On number two they have stef Toolev's Filth Queen.
You'll find that on Netflix. I have that in my
personal not on list section. The title gives it away.
It's just not my thing. Vulture rights. Filth Queen does
(07:20):
exactly what it says on the tin. It is proudly
and thoroughly gross. Steff Toolev catalogs the many horrible qualities
of the human body with the care and consideration of
an obsessive collector. Each fort is treasured for its own uniqualities.
Et cetera, et cetera. Not my thing, not interested in that.
And they have number one Kamil Nanjianni's Night Thoughts again
on Hulu December nineteenth. Haven't seen it, Who's not going
(07:42):
to get back to me? Who knows Vulture rights? He
probably could have rolled up to an hour long standup
special taping, delivered a half hearted life update, and walked
away mostly on scathe. Instead. Night Thoughts slices deep into
his last decade, carefully excavating how fame in the public
eye have changed how he sees himself. Vulture has some
other how many highlights from the year. They have listed
Brent Weinbach's Popular Culture on YouTube, Rosebud Baker's The Mother
(08:06):
Load on Netflix, and Roywood Junior's Lonely Flowers are the
other three they spotlighted. Now, if you're relatively new to
the show, I could totally fairly imagine you right now going, John,
do you even watch comedy specials? Because I mentioned I
didn't see a lot of the ones that Vulture liked,
I'll fly down my list really quickly. Right now. I
(08:26):
have it as Marin, Kevin Hart, Riife, Jim Jeffries, Justin
Willman's Magic Lover, John Marco, Moe Ammer, Dusty Slay, Kreischer,
Brett Goldstein, remember that one was real good. Michelle Wolf,
Sarah Silverman, Matt McCusker, Mattelane, and Tim Dillon would be
my fifteen top right now, and then I've got nine
more in my middle tier and a whole bunch on
(08:47):
my no thank you list. But again, I will do
that next week. It'll be out on my substack, and
it'll be an episode or two in this feed. And
that is your comedy news on a Sunday. Have a
great day.
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