September 24, 2025 • 55 mins
Friend of the Show Jason Zinoman returns to discuss Jimmy Kimmel, Late Night, and the upcoming Riyadh Comedy Festival which includes performers Dave Chappelle, Louis CK, Bill Burr and many other famous names.
Jason is a critic at large for the New York Times where he writes about comedy.
This was recorded on Tuesday before Kimmel aired. There will be a Kimmel bonus in the feed today (not sure when) and the normal Wednesday episode went out this morning.
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Jason is a critic at large for the New York Times where he writes about comedy.
This was recorded on Tuesday before Kimmel aired. There will be a Kimmel bonus in the feed today (not sure when) and the normal Wednesday episode went out this morning.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/daily-comedy-news-with-johnny-mac--4522158/support.
Become a premium subscriber! (no ads). For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which says UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING and the bonus “DCN8” show.
You also get 25+ other series (it’s only $4.99 a month with a free-trial month)
Contact John at john@thesharkdeck dot com
Media Thoughts is mcdpod.substack.com
dailycomedynews.substack.com
DCN on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@dailycomedynews
https://linktr.ee/dailycomedynews
www.buymeacoffee.com/dailycomedynews
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caloroga Shark Media, and there are another bonus episode. My
guest is Jason Zenniman, friend of the show from the
New York Times. Jason is critic at large for the
Culture section of The New York Times. If you listen
to this podcast, you hear me regularly cite him. I'm
(00:25):
gonna flip overrom my cards here. Of all the podcasts
I've done over the last seven years, I think this
is my favorite episode, and I said it to Jason
at the end of the interview. We just had a
fantastic discussion, respectful, deep dive, serious issues, disagreed as friends do.
I just want to be clear, we both had a
(00:46):
big smile on our face throughout the entire thing. Everything
here is friendly, even if sometimes we get into a
little jousting. But this was a fantastic, smart interview. As
I host this podcast, and you know, answer the question, well,
why do you thank you hosted? You've heard me talk
about what my resume is, and I always say I
know more about comedy than most people. But the people
(01:07):
that know more about it than I do know a
lot more about it. And I will put Jason in
that camp. I respect all his opinions, as you'll hear
me say during the interview, and I've said in the
past he always helps me sort my feelings about things.
So in this discussion we sure get into the kimmel
of it all. We get into some other comedy topics
at the end, like John Marco Siasi. But I asked
(01:29):
him first hear about the comedy Festival that maybe, like
a lot of things, I'm the Ralph Kiner of comedy.
I apparently mispronounced a lot of things. But let's jump in.
Hey everybody, it's friend of the show. Jason's innoment from
The New York Times, how you been tired?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Good time to run a daily comedy news podcast. You've
picked the right line of work.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's been incredible. I've been putting out two three a day,
and I just I've learned. Yesterday I spoke with Mark
Malkoff from Inside late night, and I deliberately time stamped
it because my spidey sense was telling me that the
news would change five times, and it did before I
even could publish the darn thing. So I just want
to let everyone know Jason and I are speaking on
(02:10):
Tuesday at around ten thirty a m. So if we
say something, you're like, how cub and I are responding
to the thing. That's why so much going on. We'll
get into the kimmel of it all, but that you
know that new story has changed. Even since I booked you,
you have helped me in the past sort my feelings.
And I don't know how I feel about the Rio
Odd Comedy Festival. I know I'm making crinkly face, and
(02:33):
usually when I make crinkly face, something is troubling me.
But to catch the audience up, there's a big festival
starting on Friday. Some big names performing at the Riodd
Comedy Festival, including Bill Burr, Mark Norman, Kevin hort Sebastian Manascalco,
Dave Chappelle, Luis ci K, Gave Iglesias, Jimmy Carr, Whnney Cummings,
Tom Sigora, Andrew Schiltz, and Jim Jeffries. Normally I wouldn't
(02:55):
qualify somebody with their sexuality, but it is interesting to
me that Jessica Curson is performing there. Tim Dillon was
booked there and was uninvited, and you know the Pete
Davidson is appearing there and his father notably killed on
nine to eleven. I don't know how I feel about
this thing. I like a good paycheck and I'm trying
to buy a property up at a lake. So I've
(03:17):
been joking with my business partner that right now, you know,
Daily Comedy News is brought to you by insert horrible
joke here. So I don't want to be holier than now.
You know how much Dylan money?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
How much money were you offered to go and podcast
at the Rahadi Comedy Festival.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Oh wait, you're pronouncing it better than me. Say that again.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, I'm proud of wrong. I'm sure. I'm sure that
at the I'll be there. How the it is? It
re odd?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
That's how I say it. But I get half the
comedian names wrong. So what do I know?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Saudi? Let's all, It's called Saudi. Yeah, you know?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So what is my price? I don't know? And I
think that's what I'm struggling with, is the first of all,
should you even have a price? Is it wrong that
the comedians are going? There is a paycheck? A paycheck?
This is I'm struggling with this. And I saw you
wrote a piece about it. You wrote that the optics
were never great, but they're and I'm paraphrasing. They're very
(04:08):
interesting now in light of everybody being a free speech
warrior over the weekend.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, the optics were never were never I mean, the
optics are never great. But now that although you know,
and now that free speech is the big issue that
we're grappling with, now they look even worse. At the
same time, it's sort of like, who I imagine what
they could claim or the comedians doing this. And I'm
also not overly righteous about I think there's these are there.
(04:37):
It depends what you do. Part One thing is interesting
is what they do once they're there. But it's also
you know this, I would say, what's happened in our
country over the past you know, weeks and months could
make some people say, who are we to talk the UH?
And but I mean, of course the I mean for me,
(04:57):
you know, the bones saw of a journalist who disagreed
with him, you know, the Washington Post writer kashowge by
the same people who are sponsoring this festival, would be
a deal breaker for me to show up at this festival.
The they're obviously the UH. These people are being offered
huge amounts of money, and the broader context here is
(05:20):
that the Saudi government has been doing a kind of
full court press, not just with comedians, but with athletes
and golfing events, sporting events. There's all sorts of people
there and they're making solved. You know, there's some movements
that they're starting to be you know, shipt a little
bit in their policies. And so this is just an
(05:42):
elaborate pr campaign where there is trying to use American
popular culture and entertainment to you know, make people think
of them not as the place where they chop up
people who criticize the government and cracked down on minorities
and limit women's free speech, but as the new Saudi Arabia.
(06:05):
And so if you were offered a million dollars, I
know Tim Dillon was offered, what he said, three hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars for one show, one night,
and I think he's on the low end. So if
you were offered one million dollars to go, would you
do it? If you if you went and you criticized
the Saudi government when you were there, would that change
(06:27):
the calculus. I know you want some guidance from me,
but I'm afraid I might just give you more anguish
and confusion. But I think I think it's I say
I wouldn't do it, but I'm not want to judge.
That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, so several thoughts there at a personal level. When
this was first announced, if they had come to me
and said, hey, I heard you have this really awesome podcast,
do you want to come cover it, I would have
said yes and not thought about it. As I've gotten
deeper into the story and talked about some of the
news threads and pulling on those, I think I would
be afraid to go now, even taking the money out
(07:08):
of it. And I don't know if that's spic about
the location personally, when I was at Sirius and million
years ago when the Olympics were in China, there was
light talk of us doing some radio work over there,
and people were afraid to go to China. And my
attitude twenty years ago was I'll go. They're not going
to lock me up. I'll go. I'll produce it. That'd
be great. You know, I get to go to China
on your dime, that'd be awesome. As I continue to
(07:29):
cover this as a story, I don't you know, I
don't know, like, yeah, you're some stupid podcaster who cares,
or you know, when somebody look at me, you know,
with a sad face. I don't know if I would
be comfortable going in terms of just pure finances of
here's a check, want to cover this comedy festival. You know,
I'll go to the Vancouver Comedy Festival. Yeah. I like money,
(07:50):
of course I like money. A separate story, I know,
maybe like third party, but I know of somebody who
was asked to work at I live golf event and
the paycheck was crazy, and I said, you know what,
hold your nose. That's life changing money and you can
pay off, you know, your college bills and whatever. So
(08:12):
I'm not taking the moral high ground, but I'm finding
I think you nailed it as usual. The optics are
just interesting. I don't know what to do with this.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I'm really struggling with what's really fascinating about it is
it's so related to what we're going through. Because on
one level, you know this, there's the government policies and
the corporate actors who are being spineless in this country
about standing up for speech or standing up for their artists.
But there's another level, and I know a little bit
(08:43):
of this. You know, I'm the child of a foreign
service officer. You know I grew up someone in a
qual and poor right next to Singapore, which has very
different attitude towards free speech that we do. You know,
I have Vietnamese members my family. There's all sorts of
attitudes about government censorship and crack downs are very different.
That doesn't mean I don't go to the I haven't
gone to these places, but it makes you think, and
(09:06):
we're now here, what about from the point of view
of the artist, of the individual, of the ordinary person
who's trying to get by is trying to figure out
that do you try to play within the rules that set?
Do you play along? Do you cut a deal or
do you push back? Do you fight? Do you fight?
(09:28):
Do you draw a line? You know where do if
you draw a line? Where do you draw a line?
These were once academic questions. They're no longer academic questions.
If you work for a law firm in this country
that cut a deal with Trump, what are you going
to do? If you work for a university that just
took away research for cancer, are you going to put
(09:50):
pressure on your administration? Are you going to write a letter?
Are you going to say nothing? Are you going to
try to do what you can in a small way?
And now our little silly world of comedy, we have
this great you know, the piece that I talked about
the Saudi Arabian Festival, you know, was primarily about looking
at the difference between Kimmel and Fallon. You have late
(10:12):
night hosts. All right, Clearly there is an attack, you know,
a government led attack against late night that is you know,
I would argue unprecedented. You know, there obviously have been
previous late night shows that have been you know, in
Broiland controversy, but this is something new. And what do
you do? Do you push back? Do you do you
(10:33):
criticize your bosses on air and fear getting taken off?
Do you try to play along? Do you try to
make your show more a political These are real question.
We're in it now and so this looking at what
these guys trying to figure out with the Saudi Festival,
it's like a microcosm for what's going on in our country. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And I've worked at places like Serious where the we're
all sorts of radio stations that covered some things, and
there might be a radio station that was not aligned
with your personal views. Do you just not work there?
Do you take the paycheck? I'm also looking at the
individual artists. You know, if you're Sebastian Manuscalco, you just
go and you do your thing. You're gab Iglesias, you
just go and do your thing.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
If you're Dave.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Chappelle, well, your thing kind of is political and you
have been known to do a big chunk about LGBTQ
plus are you doing it? Are you're not doing it?
What's Dave's act there?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
You know?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
This is all This is just such a fascinating topic.
It got a little covered by Kimmelgate, but I think
this is going to be a comedy thing.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Oh I would love to cover this festival. I mean,
it'd be fascinating. I'll be honest with you. I was
shocked that they I wasn't shocked, but I was. I
was surprised that they fired Tim Dollan because if on
the Saudis let them say whatever they want to say,
you get the pr win. You know, if you the
(11:58):
fact that you get to show Dave Chappelle or criticizement,
you could, I think. But it shows you how different
it is that they that they fired Tim Dillon, and
it does what I think, It puts more pressure on
the Dave Chappelle's and the Luisy Kays. We should say,
you know, you you were talking earlier about if you
got to feed your family. These are not comedians strongly
(12:19):
to feed their family.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, Kevin Hart doesn't need another paycheck. He's got enough work.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Like they did not, Like almost all of them. I
would say, it's clear they did not need to do
this festival. That is also plays into the calculus. I
would say, And you know now that Tim Dillon got fired,
does that change their thought about it? Do they not?
I mean if that happened in the US, if Columbia University,
(12:43):
you know, hired somebody and they told a joke and
then there was protests and they canceled it. And Dave
Chappelle was showing up a Columbia university, is there any
question that he would make the whole set about that,
you know, the oppressiveness of of you know, the Columbia
University cancel culture mob, etc. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
I think it's that the general public, even the comedy fans,
just haven't caught onto this. I noticed it during the summer.
I've been mentioning on and off. I truly did have
it as my opener on Monday, and then as I
was working on Monday Show on Sunday, I saw your piece.
There are a couple of things CBS wrote about it.
There's been a few blogs about it, but I don't
think this has registered yet.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah. No, Well maybe when it starts and when these
guys perform will be interesting to see what happens. And
considering the climate here, it's even more interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
The name that it pops out that really jumps off
the page for me. Well, well, we're Tim and Jessica
because of their sexuality, and Pete Davidson for the nine
to eleven connection. As we're recording today, what's on my
mind it is the it was my father's birthday. He
died thirty plus years ago from cancer. Sure, and I'm
not sure, you know, I'm not sure I would be
(14:03):
at the Lucky Strike Comedy Festival despite the paycheck. That
might just be a thing where, you know what, Johnny
Mack loves money. But you know, I'm not reading live
reads for AR fifteen's and I don't know if i'd
be at the cigarette festival just as a personal thing.
So I find Pete Davidson might just be a much
better person than me, but that juxtaposition to me just
(14:24):
keeps jumping off the page.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, the uh I hesitate to go. I mean there
the I don't know what the reason is and what
his politics about that are. You know, there's all sorts
of things. I mean, the there's also the problem, there's
a lot of I think a lot of these comedians
(14:48):
are working for places already that they don't support, and
they probably get immune to it. And I mean, you know,
you could take there's people who certainly could take I've
seen people who say, like, oh, if you're if you
you should you know, you shouldn't appear on the Joe
Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan has done the people who think
that Joe Rogan has done irreparable damage to the country
(15:14):
and the world. As we you know, are recording this
the day after we learned that Kyle Linoll causes autism.
And what is the responsibility of the artists if they
get you know, if if Jordan Jensen gets offered to
be on the Joe Rogan Experience, should she say no?
These are these are live questions, right and the you
(15:35):
know where you draw the line says something about who
you are and what you're willing to do. But they're
also not easy questions.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
No, and we saw over the weekend when we all
had Disney rage. I pointed this out. John Stewart separately
put it this on I'm not doing the John Stewart
still what joke, you know, peril thinkings more people can
sometimes come to the same line. But I was pointing out, Okay,
we're mad at ABC, which means we're mad at Disney,
So don't watch Monday Night Football. Cancel your Disney plus,
(16:04):
no more Star Wars, nor no more Marvel, no more
Red Zone. Does your morality on this end at Monday
night football?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Here's the thing the uh, you're exactly right. One of
the issues we have that sort of all of these
issues are related to, is is this one of kind
of corporate consolidation. Trump is using all these levers that
are wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the fact
that like a handful of companies control everything. And so yeah,
(16:35):
when you realize, yeah, boycotting Disney and ABC is gonna
is much a much bigger ask than a lot of
people probably think. That said, if there's another thing we've learned.
It's that Boycott's work. I do think that Bob Iger
changed course in part because of Boycott's And I also
(16:57):
think there's a danger to this sort of neolis stick
view that, oh, you know, it's all complicated, so we're
not going to draw any line. You know, everything is
you know, who ever, anyone who says they're they're not
going to do something on moral principle is you know,
a self righteous prig right'. I've really am kind of
(17:18):
sick and tired of like five If you want to
not take moral stands on this, I understand it. But
to judge people who do, who actually are putting themselves
at risk and in the process perhaps making a difference,
that that sort of pisses me off. And I think
(17:39):
you're seeing a really you know, in some ways, you
look at what happened. Kimmel got taken off the air,
and people sign petitions, the people that Santa Fleuve to
mock actors, celebrities, you know, people wrote articles, people ordinary
people cancel Disney Plus and posted and on social media,
(18:02):
you know, the most mocked thing in stand up comedy
virtue signaling posting something right, like how many times have
we heard about the post George Floyd posting the Black
squares and oh, these hypocrits screw you that really you
have to also say that had an impact and sometimes
getting politically being politically involved makes a difference and the
(18:26):
and I think that we this is the case where
part of the goal of authoritarian regimes is to scare
you and to make you feel powerless. And I think
one of the things that we've got to do now
is not fall for this idea that we have no power.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
We do have power.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
We we have our voice. We can speak out, we
can stay, we can say what our line is. We
can and it can vary. Maybe for some people it's
you know, they'll go with Joe Rogan, but they're not
going to go to you know there, or they're not
going to go to Saudi Arabia, or they they're not
gonna cancel Disney, but they're gonna sign a petition what
they People have a voice in this country and they
(19:07):
have to and they should use it and they shouldn't
feel like they have no control. And because of what
if they do, then we're in a really dark place.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well said, I'm trying to be a better host than
actually building the break, So we'll come back. We'll talk
late night. Jason Zinnaman is with The New York Times.
Let's dive in on late night. Let me just throw
a grenade to open it up to your fellow Americans.
You weren't watching Stephen Colbert anyway. I know it was
number one. I know you're so upset about it, but
you weren't watching at eleven thirty anyway? Is late night over?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Oh my god, is late night? It seems like it's
more relevant than ever Johnny.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
This week, But you weren't watching Kimbell either.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I think Trump has made late night the tip of
the spear. It's it's more important. People are gonna walk.
We're on Tuesday, eleven o'clock tonight is Jimmy Kimmel's monologue.
You're gonna be watching it, Johnny Mack? Are you not?
Are you not gonna be watching it? Is everybody gonna
(20:06):
be watching it? Is it the most important piece of
comedy of twenty twenty five? Probably?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Probably? So let's not get it twisted like there's this
other lie that gets spread. I hope we can talk
about the substance of what happened. There's a lot of
bs from people who don't know what they're talking about,
and including from commentators who are like, no one's watching
the shows. Not true. Colbert had the high no one's
watching Everything has lower ratings than it did twenty years ago. Sitcoms,
(20:38):
your show everything, that's just a fact, right. The yes,
it's expensive and the economic models is not as good
as it used to be. But this is the highest
rated program in its time slot, Stephen Colbert, and it
got canceled. So it's not about that, right, there are
people watching. It's about something else, right, it's about the reason.
(21:00):
The reason they're being canceled is about something else. It's
about what they're saying. Right. So if you're using this
moment to say, oh, Late Night's irrelevant and it's no
one's watching it, one, you're lying. Two, you're missing the
fucking forest with the trees. It's the more relevant than
it's been in thirty fucking years. And so get with
(21:22):
the program this. You can't choose where like the action is.
The action is not on stand up specials to Netflix
right now. They have not released a single special since
this administration began that mattered remotely to ports politics in America,
what has mattered are these late night shows. So we
have to ask ourselves why is that.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
We both have fixed smiles on our face and while
we're doing this. So I'm just gonna poke and do
what I would do if we were doing this over beers,
because this is what I would do it over beers. Sure, yes,
Tonight's Jimmy Kimmel Tuesday Night Jimmy Kimmel is super important.
But a week from now, next Thursday, hey join me
tonight at eleven thirty five, Jamie Lee Curtis and some
band are coming by.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's last week's.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
News already, and we're back to does late night matter
in twenty twenty five? I get what you're saying about
the importance of it, and I was talking with Mark
Malkoff about it. I think there's still something to be
said for eleven thirty If you look at THEO Vaughn.
Clearly influential, clearly making a lot of money, clearly selling
a lot of tickets. But he's a podcaster and so
(22:26):
am I. It's not as impressive. It doesn't have the
statesmanship that eleven thirty five has, So I can argue
it either way. It's an important position, but Also, I
don't think people were watching it tonight to last night.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I guess sure. I guess my brushing you is, if
it's so unimportant, why did Trump go after it?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Because they're making fun of him?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Okay, a lot of people are making fun of him.
People are making fun of him on social media, people
are making fun of him on in comedy clubs. People,
But why did it go it? Like, you don't go
after something that does it matter? I think you have
to question your assumptions now, like it is not. Did
you watch the Adam Frielan show every week?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
No?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Okay, so that is a show that young people are
watching in a way and you can make the cases
relevant in a way that late night shows are not.
Right And certainly it went viral for this conversation with
Richie Torres about Israel. Right, there's a there is a
time and a place to say yes, shows on YouTube
that like are like that kind of show are relevant
(23:29):
to young people in a way that late night was
in the eighties. It's not as late night is not
as relevant to that. But that's not now. Like if
you're still saying late night is not relevant now, you're
missing the point. They it maybe never been more relevant
like we are now in an authoritarian moment. The Donald
(23:51):
Trump has picked has gone after it was Colbert and Kimmel.
That's the best piece of evidence for its relevance there. Now,
if you want to argue about ratings, we can do it,
and we could talk about numbers, right and I think
there's actually a case to be made. It sounds counterintuitive
because so many people have been saying nobody watches late
night shows. But you could argue that more people are
(24:15):
watching some form of late night television than they have
in twenty five thirty years or twenty five may twenty years.
If you include like you, if you look at like
at the end, you know, close to the election. If
you look at like what Seth Myers did online plus
his ratings on the show, plus clips, and you compare
(24:39):
it to the Letterman or to the Conan Letterman late
nights period of that same thing, it's not that different.
That's a different question. That isn't making money. So it's
not making it's making less money. There's no question to that.
But so when you say it's not relevant people are
watching what you it's not true. What you really mean
is the econdog anog model is not there, and I
(25:02):
don't think you really want to be saying that. And
the reason I feel very personally about this is what's
happened to my industry newspapers. There's more people reading about
like cultural news than ever before, but the economic model
fell apart, and so all these new sapers fell apart.
It's not because no one's reading them. And to understand
(25:23):
the economics. There's a whole other question has to do
with advertising rates and how digitally digital advertising rates are
much worse than print advertising rates versus. And the same
thing is going with going on in late night. But
that's a question of money, it's not a question of relevance.
So if you want to talk about money, but I
just reject the idea that this is not relevant. I
(25:46):
think we have to now be like, okay, this is
now very relevant, and you got and I do think
people have to pick a side. Wait, like are you
going to stand up? Are you going to stand up
against government censorship? Which is distinct cancel culture.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
This is why I love having you on because you
help me sort my feelings. As I've used that phrase already,
you point out I'm thinking one of my best birthday presents. Ever,
when I was a teenagers, I got a VCR, and
the point of the VCR was so that I didn't
have to stay up till one thirty in the morning
watching David Letterman. I could then watch it the next
day on tape literal tape, which really is no different
(26:23):
than watching Jimmy Kimmel's monologue the next morning on social
media clip. It's just a different form. So I think
you make a good point there. Let's talk about the money,
Stephen Colbert number one, it was that something else or
it's we're losing forty million dollars. This makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I mean, I think when it happened, there was this
debate that was the question, right and the uh I
think now post this Kimmel thing, it seems like a
silly thing to ask. Obviously, it's not like something else
is going on here and in another But at the
time I suspect did it was a silly question, And
the reason I suspected it was this. For the history
(27:05):
of late night television, the metric for success was one thing.
Ratings right. If the show was doing well, ratings were good.
If the show is doing bad, the rains. This is
from Steve Allen, from jad par to Johnny Carson to
Jay Leno to That's how we did it? That all
(27:25):
changed coincidentally the moment that Stephen Colbert got canceled Suddenly,
CBS after eighty years or whatever it is of asting
us to judge success or failure by ratings, asked us
to judge by a completely new metric, budgets. It's losing
forty million dollars. We never been asked to do this before.
(27:48):
And let's be honest here, Johnny, we are ill equipped
to judge it because we don't have an answer. We
don't know how much money it costs ten years ago.
We don't know how much the Morning Show costs. We
don't know how much an hour drama is cost or losing.
So basically, they're asking us to judge by this entirely
new metric that we're completely ignorant about. We have no
(28:08):
context for. My conclusion is it is I call bullshit.
I call bullshit. There's something. It's politics. It's politics right now?
Do I know? Do I think that the Late Show
was making money? No? Do I think the Late Show
is a healthy economic model?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Do I think Late Night is gonna stay the same
in the next ten years. Absolutely not like it costs
too much money to put on a show in the
ed sol of the theater. And there are all these
other models, particularly podcasts, that are much more financially viable.
Now there are other examples of entertainment which are which
(28:46):
lose money aka Broadway. Everyone knows you're gonna lose money
if you invest in a Broadway show. That forever for
the astuery of Broadway. The majority of Broadway shows lose money,
But people still do it because of other reasons. Right,
they think it's good for the culture. They like to
go to parties. It's the prestige. They're name and lights
(29:07):
whatever it is, right, And there was a time when
Maate Night was the prestige you had, like, Oh, this
is the face of the network. It's doing, it's responding
to the news, it's being it's reless. That has declined.
The prestige of late night shows has declined from the
days of Conan and Letterman. The artistic ambition of these
(29:30):
shows has declined, so that I think, in some ways
is more important than the dollars and cents, because you're
not if the prestige is down you're not willing to
lose the money as much. And then if the presceige
is down and you're getting attacked politically for it, and
you're as spineless as Dave Lebanon will call you corporate
(29:53):
pinhead weasel, then maybe you cut your losses and replace
it with a rerun.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Serious point. A second is I'm listening to you with
your passion, your cadence, and your vocal range. If they
ever make a John Stewart animated series, you can get
the voice work on that. You've got that down.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I apologize for yelling at you, John, I'm all mean
to be yelling you.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I'm just just an Actually, we both have big smiles
on our face. This is just this is what we
would be doing at the bar and order another round
now and go back into it.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And this is the way I show love. This is
the way Happy Russia, Shana Johanny back, this is the
way Jewish family show love.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And I'm doing my host job. I don't want to
just go yes, I agree, Jason, great point. Next topic, like,
I'm asking you questions and then shutting up because I
want to hear what you think specific to Colbert and
the money. Many people have made the point, do we
need the Ed Sullivan Theater? Do you need two undred staffers?
Can you do with one sixty? Could we do the
show four nights a week, three nights a week. Let's
double tape Wednesday and do two on Thursday. It's interesting
(30:49):
to me that they didn't stop off at any of
that and went straight to and you know what, we
can't afford this completely.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Let me tell you, in every other show they've asked
to make cuts. Some you've heard about, some you haven't.
So that's the first thing you do when you have
an issue. They didn't do that here, right, But let
me just also answer that question. I do think they
shouldn't be in the ed Solvent Theater. I mean, here's
a controversial hot take. David Letterman got worse moving from
(31:20):
thirty Rock to Ed Sullivan. It was too big a room.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Colbert got worse moving from a small intimate space in
the Colbert Report to the ed Solvent Theater. I get
the appeal to artists of doing work in the place
where the Ed Solvent was, with a beatles porch played,
putting on a big show. There's something wonderful about a
big show around Broadway. Trust me, I understand that, but
it doesn't. It isn't necessarily the best form for most
(31:46):
kinds of comedy. Some kinds it is, But I don't
think it's going to be a great artistic loss to
lose the Ed Sullivan Theater. And I do think by
the way network you might find is a big part
of the calculus here is selling the Ed Solivent Theater.
CBS is gonna maybe they'll sell that to a you know,
(32:07):
the Schubert's, the Neederlanders or a Broadway landlord, and they
can get a lot of money from that. And maybe
that's the real economics of it. Again, it's so oblique.
We don't know what's what the calculus here is. But
I think that I think that, you know, it's worth
saying that, Like there was this moment that ironically, I
(32:30):
would say reached its peak with the Dawn of the
Late Show, the Letterman's Late Show, where they felt like, oh,
we're printing money. This is an incredibly cheap form, that's
what's great about it. So we can we can pay
we can buy expensive theater, we can pay huge salary
for talent. We can say and they and you know
that time has passed what once the ads ad rates
(32:54):
went down. They can't do that. So now they're stuck
with this real estate, you know, in New York, it's
all real estate, you know, And they're gonna have to
downsize and adjust. And there's nobody who's better equipped to
downsize and adjust than comedians. Right. They don't need a
fancy theater. They don't need like that's the beauty of
(33:17):
podcasts like it. The reason that the comedians have dominated
that form is they don't need the bells and whistles.
They don't need an orchestra. It's not like forty second Street,
like you need a twenty piece orchestra and a long
line of dancers, high kicking dancers to really do justice
to one singular sensation and every little step we take.
(33:42):
You don't need that to do a great David Letterman monologue.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I wonder if there was a Taylor Thomason butterfly effect.
Now let me scream from the mountaintops. I'm not blaming
Taylor Thomlinson. I'm not blaming Taylor Thomlinson. But Taylor Thomason's
twelve thirty show had been picked up and then, as
we're told, she changed her mind. What was the plan there?
Were you going to have a twelve thirty show but
no eleven thirty show? That's kind of weird. Were you
(34:07):
going to slide tailor up to eleven thirty that's differently weird.
That doesn't add up to me. Although having been in
corporate boardrooms with programming meetings, I could see a scenario
where once the band aid was pulled off twelve thirty,
I could see some Weisenheimer like me going do we
even need eleven thirty? And that that starting thing. I
(34:27):
don't know if that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I think it's a very good theory I heard, I
saw it. Maybe it was usaw make a footing this
theory first, But I'm again, we don't know. There's some
the reality is most And you know, I got very
exercised earlier because I have strong opinions on what I
think happened, and I think every piece of information that
comes out I think supports my initial instinct, which is
(34:55):
this is fundamentally taking a step back political But it's
a multi callsal thing. And yeah, Taylor Thomlinson was part
of it, but that is as it's clearly a weird
It doesn't make It doesn't add up that they would
make her an offer at the same time they'd be
getting out of the late night business.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, that doesn't add up at all. Let's dive in
on ABC because the greater issue, other than the specifical
Jimmy Kimmel is, as you've pointed out, the important issue.
The FCC chair goes on a podcast, has some things,
then two hours later, Jimmy Kimmel's pulled off the air.
I mean that escalated quickly, you know, And that's not
a conversation where I was going. Now you know, we're
(35:33):
also losing money on Jimmy Kimmel. This was clearly the
affiliates overreacting to what Jimmy Kimmel actually said. He was
the line they apparently have a problem with the front
half about their trying to distance themselves. Probably could have
been phrased better. If I've said, if you'd speak into
a microphone long enough, you will say things you wish
he had phrased better. I'm going to listen back to
(35:55):
the edit of this show and go like, oh, I
misspoke there. I wish i'd clean that up. That's going
to happen, So maybe Jimmy could have made his point
more clearly on the first half, but in essence that's
a Trump joke. And then the FCC chair goes, I
don't know, you know, we can handle this the easy
way of the hard way, which is like your dad
in a bad mood. And then the affiliates bail and
then the strangest thing to me, having worked in the
(36:19):
entertainment industry, even though radio is not Hollywood, but radio,
it's the entertainment industry, you back your talent. You always
back your talent. Now we might pull you in the
back room and be like, hey, Jason, you got to
cut it out with the publicly. Hey, Jason's been a
great contributor to the Daily Comedy News podcast. He's a
recurring guest. We love the guy. We're going to have
(36:39):
him back, and you know we've got your back. You
always do that publicly to kick the face of your
network out the door. Within two hours, the FCC chair
could say whatever he wants. That's a reaction to the
government going you guys better cut it out, or you know,
bad things could happen.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I think what you just said everyone should be willing
to agree with that. You've got to back. You're like
the job, the core job. And I think, as someone
who writes for a newspaper, I believe that incredibly strongly,
Like I will, just like you've got to back your
writers even when they're wrong, right, even when they're wrong.
(37:18):
That doesn't mean you don't it don't run corrections, we
don't come up with different points of view, We don't
admit we're wrong. But the you need to support artists
and writers so they are willing to take risks. And
that's true in Late Night's Hue in your business to
my business, is true in for right wing left wing
(37:39):
it's true for that is how a large measure of
how these people should be judged. Now, one thing I
want to ask you, because I'm a little bit I've
been sort of confused or I'm not sure how what
I think about this. What Jimmy Kimmel actually said, Okay,
what even some people who defend him, the Andrew Schultz,
(38:02):
who I think has had like a tried to kind
of do a both side on this, but all fundamentally
defended his right to free speech right. But he also said,
and I think some other people have said that when
he said the killer of Charlie Kirk that the Trumps
is trying to make it so the killer of Charli
Hirk is anything but Maga, Right, Yes, did you think
(38:27):
that what he was saying was the killer of Charlie
Kirk is Maga.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
As I listened to the edit here, I think this
would be a good time to replay what Jimmy Kimmel said,
and then I'll go back and pick up with Jason's question.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the
Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered
Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and
everything they can to score political points from. And in
between the finger pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the
White House flew the flags at half staff, which some criticism,
but on a human level, you can see how hard
(39:04):
the President is taking this.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I condun't have that a lot of your friend. Charlie
Kirk asked sir personally. How are you holding up over
the last day and a half, Sir, I think very good.
And by the way, right there, you see all the
trucks they've just started construction of the new ball room
for the White House.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Did you think that what he was saying was the
killer of Charlie Kirk is MAGA. I do not.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I believe Jimmy Kimmel was saying that the politicians or
the conservative speakers were trying to make it clear that
the shooter was not one of them. I think Jimmy
was saying, that is what they are saying. I don't
think Jimmy was saying that the shooter was Mega. I
think he was saying that the politicians are trying to
make it clear to everybody else who might be misconstrued
(39:50):
that the shooter is not Maga. And then the funny
part was the president's reaction to how do you feel
about the death of friend Charlie Kirk? Check out this
beautiful ballroom. I'm building that that's the joke. But I
don't think Jimmy was implying something. Could he have phrased
it better? I think that's clear, But I don't think
(40:11):
there was any malice there at all.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Well see that. I think that is looking forward to
tonight where to see what he says, which everyone's going
to be watching. I think that's going to be the
thing to watch for because I agree with you, but
clearly other people disagree clearly. I I you know, I
don't think I can say it's all bad fate. I
think some people really did take him to say that,
(40:34):
and I think it was as you say it was.
It was clumsily put and it opened up this window
for him to be misinterpreted. A lot of it is
bad fait, clearly, But I think what he's going to
do is he's going to clarify that. I think he's good.
I think he's going to say I did not mean
to play because I think that is first of all,
(40:56):
it doesn't seem to be. It's not true, and speculating
on that is is not a good thing to do,
in my opinion and by all evidence, his first reaction
to the assassination was to express sympathy and to say,
can we just be all share a remorse, just feel
just you know, not politicize this, but call this a tragedy.
(41:17):
So the idea that he was doing that seems like
that's not what he was trying to do. But that
doesn't mean that it didn't come off sounding like that
to some people. And one of the things that's been
frustrating about what's happened to he got taken off the air.
Is a lot of people. There's a certain numb of
people who saw what he said, but most people didn't.
And there's a lot of people who are saying, oh,
(41:38):
I disagree with what he said, but I support his
right to say it, which is better than saying nothing
or not saying you support is ready to say it.
But I think it's also I think I think unfair
to him because I think it's more accurate to say
he didn't put this well and he was confusing in
his delivery. But his intent, which is clear to me,
(42:00):
was not to say that. It was just it was
that he was commenting on the politicization of the killen.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Now around the same timetable on the Fox News channel,
Brian Killmead on live television made a comment about I'm
paraphrasing here, but the gist of it was involuntarily lethal
injections to the homeless. Excuse me what now. He apologized
for it pretty quickly, but he wasn't removed from air.
There's no outrage about that. But you know, we should
(42:28):
round up the homeless and inject them and kill them.
Excuse me what? To me, that's far worse than even
if we think Kimmel was saying what some people think
he was saying, and I don't. I don't think the
let's round up people and shoot them with lethal injections
is far worse.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I mean, obviously I agree, but even the fact that
we're discussing it is sort of a concession, like this
is not fundamentally my interpretation is this is not about
I don't think Among the good faith readings of that
comment are includes Brendan Carr from the SEC like he
(43:06):
was looking for something to take out late night talks
to us because Trump wanted it, which he said explicitly.
This is Sherlock's Holmes mystery. This is couldn't be more obvious.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Me kibble your next.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
It's like, it's so maddening that we have to sit around.
I mean, it's interesting to exp from like a craft
point of view, to be like, well, did he say
something that was actually he said is quickly. But the
bigger picture we should not lose sight of is he
was he got shut down because of the governments wanted
to shut up its critics. This is government censorship and
(43:48):
it's and it's clear as day, and if it could
happen to him, it could happen to you, and it's
He's not the first either, He's I mean he's not
or the most important. Look at the universities, look at
the law firms, look at companies. This is now what
life is in this country and we need to figure out.
(44:10):
You know. Obviously, I think it's like, I think he's
going to clarify it tonight, But I think that the
problem with the Disney response is Disney started, Disney starts
to treat this attack as a good faith concern over
you know what he said, They've already kind of lost
(44:30):
the plot.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
I do want to say, as somebody who's been a
manager at broadcast companies, you do back your talent. There
is a line in all situations. There are exceptions. So
what might be an example of where you might not
back your talent? As a total hypothetical, And I always
use the example of the Martians for a reason because
I'm not trying to do hate speech, but it's the
way I illustrate hate speech. If on the Saturday Night
(44:54):
Live premiere, one of the main casts loses their mind
and goes into a taia tribe about the Martians, those
green skin antenor freaks are horrible and they're eating the cats.
That might be a situation where NBC and Lord Michaels
might say, you know what, that performer is no longer
part of the SNL cast. That might not be a
situation where you're going to go in and back the talent.
(45:17):
It might be a situation where you do back the
talent and go obviously, so and so is having personal
issues and lost their mind on live TV, and we
apologize to the moortion community. That could be a scenario.
But that also could be a scenario for a dismissal
where we're not going to back hate speech, which is
not at all what we're talking about in any of
these cases.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I agree, but let me say something that let me
give you, let me compliment a network an exec. Okay,
I didn't like a lot of the Dave Chappelle specials
about the obsessive focus on trans stuff. I said so
in print right more than once. But I also think
(45:59):
that then Ted Serandos standing but not pulling the special,
not you know, standing by him was the right move
that even I think, and I think she deserves he
deserves credit for that. The in the same way. You know, also,
he could be like you can also say I disagree
with him, which which is what happened, by the way,
(46:21):
with HBO. Once Eddie Murphy got a protested for his
for his Delirious where he made incredibly offensive remarks that
age HBO president. They eventually apologize it, and so did
the corporate did, but they didn't take it off the service.
And I'm not saying there's never a time to take
someone off of service, or to take someone off the network,
(46:42):
or there's no line you can't cross to get you fired.
Of course they're you know that, I think, and their
boycotts are away for people or another form of speech.
But as somebody who cares about artistic freedom, I would
like the suits or my editors are the people who
run your podcast video to err on the side of
(47:04):
letting people say what they want to say, even if
they disagree with it, even if it's even a you know,
obviously there's a line that goes too far, but I
think they The Kimmel thing didn't even come remotely close.
The Chaffellevee came closer, and I still think the right
response is to fight it with boycott's speech criticism. That's
(47:30):
the way a healthy democracy works. And so the people
who don't like Jimmy Kivel had many many forums to
express their dislike of him. They have Magnum before. They
can also not watch them, but they also could put
can boycott them where they can create. And I'm sure
they're goynew you know, they have many, many ways to
(47:52):
do it. That's not what happened here. That's the difference.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
You know. I'm excited about the reverse boycott because I
do have shows to make it a cast of beaeff.
And to that point, let me get in one more
break with Jason Zenmann from The New York Times. Jason,
we're losing Mark Marin at the wrong time. He just peaked,
I think with his last comedy special as the Best.
I feel like he's the right guy. He was, you know,
(48:18):
not being shy about his opinions about some of his
fellow podcasters. And I think he's bothered that his fellow
podcasters became podcasters because of the success of the medium
he helped build. And here we are as we head
into October, and Mark's gonna walk away from us. Don't
leave Mark. How do we convince Mark Maron to stay?
We need Mark Mann.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
I wouldn't be shocked if he does come back in
some form, don't you think. I don't think the guy
can stay away. He's like, yeah, he's on Instagram live,
he's kind, you know, he likes being in the mix,
and he's at the at the height of this. I mean,
his podcast run was an all timer for in support
of this new special. I think he you know, I
(48:58):
can't think of a more successful podcasts, you know, just
let get a great example of like criticizing all these
people and starting conversations, getting pushed back, having back and forth,
going on their shows to some of them, you know,
going to talk about Howie Mendell bad friends. These It
(49:19):
was interesting to see like a genuine conversation about and
to see what their reaction to it was. So I
don't know, we'll see, we'll see. I agree. I think
it's an odd time for him to leave, because I
do think there's like a huge lane for like that
kind of outspoken liberal political comedy voice, and it's going
(49:40):
to be filled. It's going to be filled, we're bother
by Marring or somebody else.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
I could see the him being burnt out on prepping
for guests and doing that. But maybe do something like
Bird doesn't just pop on Monday morning and do twelve
minutes about whatever's on your mind and doesn't have to
be fancily produced. Just open up the mic, rip and go.
But yeah, weird. Time to walk off. Couple of things
I want to hit. I know you're on the John
Marco SIASI train. That special was fantastic. Yeah, he's been
(50:07):
one of my favorites. I feel like this is a
really jerky thing to say, but I'm just being honest here.
So on my show. I saw him for the first
time at the Montreal Comedy Festival New Faces, and I
have been saying like, no, this is the guy. He's amazing,
and I feel like he's making me look good. And
that's such a jackass thing to say.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Well, I've been there, I've been there, I know, I
know the feeling of it, and yeah, you look good.
I think it's a it's a great special. It's doing
really well. I see it's like past half million views,
and I think he's a good example of somebody that
does all the nonsense that you need to do in
(50:48):
twenty twenty five, the social media stuff, the crowd work,
politics and what you see in this special is he
also works hard at the craft of comedy, at refining jokes.
It's a it's a punchline, dense set. It's I mean,
it's actually what's really exciting about it is I think
(51:10):
it's a step up from his previous work. But I
don't think it's actually I think he's got another gear
because he he is, you know, a very thoughtful guy
that has things to say, and this special is not
you know, this special is more about jokes. I would argue,
(51:31):
and not to say that there's not things to say
in it. And he talks about his dysfunctional family and
he talks about but he I think he actually has
a lot of range as a comic, which is what
I think maybe you were seeing, is that he can
do all these different things. He's he's act out's physical puns,
you know, the you know, crowd work. That he has
(51:53):
all this rate. How he can be like a political comic.
He could just be a straight up potical comic. The
he could be club he can be all tis. He's
obviously theater obsessed, so he blurs a lot of lines.
And I think what's cool about this special is it's
him showing off his sort of Club Comic Chops.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
I'm just gonna move on because we're tight on time.
I did two more things I want to hit coming
off the Emmys. Can you help me talk Nate pergetsie
off the ledge that he's going to stop being a
stand up and he's going to build a theme park.
Because I've said this, I'm going to ten years from
now be like, remember when nateer gets he thought he
was going to build a theme park. Nate, you got it.
You're at the peak, man. Just play the theaters. It's
all good. I think we're now thirty seconds past peak. Nate.
(52:37):
They pulled out the cherry host of the Emmys. I
don't think it went well, and you're a great stand up.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Just do that, dude, I mean it's I do wonder
what he thinks. Let me just for the sake of
fun podcast clashing disagreement, let me play Devil's Advocate. Ratings
were up eight percent, I think, even though all all
the critics seemed to dislike it, even though he seemed
(53:04):
uncomfortable and he seemed we can debate for another time.
The central bit of the Emmys, which I actually think
I'm a little bit of an anomaly on. But I
do agree he was the wrong person to deliver that bit,
but it reached. It was judged by the success we
mentioned earlier, the sixth secta metric that we've always judged
by ratings. It worked, and I'm sure the Emmys are
(53:27):
gonna want him back next year. Now, he also was
this guy who had gotten great reviews and until this
Emmys were suddenly a lot of people who didn't know
who he was had maybe a bad feeling about him.
So I don't I'm not sure he saw that as
a success, but so yeah, I agree. Will he stick
(53:48):
to doing theme parks and movies? We'll see. Maybe after
a movie comes out and it doesn't do well, he
might have a change of heart.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Last one, I've started a segment called comedy stock market.
I won't have you do any sales because you're a
positive kind of guy. But in the comedy stock market,
who should we be buying a proverbial stock in comedy?
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Oh my god, I don't know. I mean, I think
Siasi is a good is definitely a guy to buy stock,
and he's on the he's on the ascent, and there's
too many people. But right, but this week, since the
special came out. He's somebody who is on the rise.
I think, you know, I'll just shout out another one
who I liked, Dusty Sleigh. Oh, yes, absolutely, who's a
(54:30):
great comic and is in the the Nate universe. But
somebody who who's special I think deserves more attention.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
All right, Jason Zenniman. You can read him in the
New York Times, especially if you want to prechape a Saturday.
You can read a couple of paraphts. And thank you
for that. I'm gonna say this on air. This is
the best hour of this podcast ever. This was just
a wonderful conversation. It was thoughtful, it was respectful, We
let each other speak, We had smiles on our faces.
(54:58):
There was nothing antagonistic. Don't at end of the text.
This was a good, healthy discussion. Always great to have
you on. I appreciate it, man.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I am flattered to hear you say that, because, as
you know, I am a fan of this podcast, a
regular listener. So I'm very flattered and I appreciate do
you giving me a fortune to get some irrational anger
off my chest?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Man wasn't that great? And I forgot to record a
proper clothes. I'm sitting out on the back deck trying
to get some fresh air for the first time in
a week, and cleaning up the edit, and I'm like, oh,
I can't just knock out like that, So this is
the proper close. See you later.
Caloroga Shark Media, and there are another bonus episode. My
guest is Jason Zenniman, friend of the show from the
New York Times. Jason is critic at large for the
Culture section of The New York Times. If you listen
to this podcast, you hear me regularly cite him. I'm
(00:25):
gonna flip overrom my cards here. Of all the podcasts
I've done over the last seven years, I think this
is my favorite episode, and I said it to Jason
at the end of the interview. We just had a
fantastic discussion, respectful, deep dive, serious issues, disagreed as friends do.
I just want to be clear, we both had a
(00:46):
big smile on our face throughout the entire thing. Everything
here is friendly, even if sometimes we get into a
little jousting. But this was a fantastic, smart interview. As
I host this podcast, and you know, answer the question, well,
why do you thank you hosted? You've heard me talk
about what my resume is, and I always say I
know more about comedy than most people. But the people
(01:07):
that know more about it than I do know a
lot more about it. And I will put Jason in
that camp. I respect all his opinions, as you'll hear
me say during the interview, and I've said in the
past he always helps me sort my feelings about things.
So in this discussion we sure get into the kimmel
of it all. We get into some other comedy topics
at the end, like John Marco Siasi. But I asked
(01:29):
him first hear about the comedy Festival that maybe, like
a lot of things, I'm the Ralph Kiner of comedy.
I apparently mispronounced a lot of things. But let's jump in.
Hey everybody, it's friend of the show. Jason's innoment from
The New York Times, how you been tired?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Good time to run a daily comedy news podcast. You've
picked the right line of work.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's been incredible. I've been putting out two three a day,
and I just I've learned. Yesterday I spoke with Mark
Malkoff from Inside late night, and I deliberately time stamped
it because my spidey sense was telling me that the
news would change five times, and it did before I
even could publish the darn thing. So I just want
to let everyone know Jason and I are speaking on
(02:10):
Tuesday at around ten thirty a m. So if we
say something, you're like, how cub and I are responding
to the thing. That's why so much going on. We'll
get into the kimmel of it all, but that you
know that new story has changed. Even since I booked you,
you have helped me in the past sort my feelings.
And I don't know how I feel about the Rio
Odd Comedy Festival. I know I'm making crinkly face, and
(02:33):
usually when I make crinkly face, something is troubling me.
But to catch the audience up, there's a big festival
starting on Friday. Some big names performing at the Riodd
Comedy Festival, including Bill Burr, Mark Norman, Kevin hort Sebastian Manascalco,
Dave Chappelle, Luis ci K, Gave Iglesias, Jimmy Carr, Whnney Cummings,
Tom Sigora, Andrew Schiltz, and Jim Jeffries. Normally I wouldn't
(02:55):
qualify somebody with their sexuality, but it is interesting to
me that Jessica Curson is performing there. Tim Dillon was
booked there and was uninvited, and you know the Pete
Davidson is appearing there and his father notably killed on
nine to eleven. I don't know how I feel about
this thing. I like a good paycheck and I'm trying
to buy a property up at a lake. So I've
(03:17):
been joking with my business partner that right now, you know,
Daily Comedy News is brought to you by insert horrible
joke here. So I don't want to be holier than now.
You know how much Dylan money?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
How much money were you offered to go and podcast
at the Rahadi Comedy Festival.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Oh wait, you're pronouncing it better than me. Say that again.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, I'm proud of wrong. I'm sure. I'm sure that
at the I'll be there. How the it is? It
re odd?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
That's how I say it. But I get half the
comedian names wrong. So what do I know?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Saudi? Let's all, It's called Saudi. Yeah, you know?
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So what is my price? I don't know? And I
think that's what I'm struggling with, is the first of all,
should you even have a price? Is it wrong that
the comedians are going? There is a paycheck? A paycheck?
This is I'm struggling with this. And I saw you
wrote a piece about it. You wrote that the optics
were never great, but they're and I'm paraphrasing. They're very
(04:08):
interesting now in light of everybody being a free speech
warrior over the weekend.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, the optics were never were never I mean, the
optics are never great. But now that although you know,
and now that free speech is the big issue that
we're grappling with, now they look even worse. At the
same time, it's sort of like, who I imagine what
they could claim or the comedians doing this. And I'm
also not overly righteous about I think there's these are there.
(04:37):
It depends what you do. Part One thing is interesting
is what they do once they're there. But it's also
you know this, I would say, what's happened in our
country over the past you know, weeks and months could
make some people say, who are we to talk the UH?
And but I mean, of course the I mean for me,
(04:57):
you know, the bones saw of a journalist who disagreed
with him, you know, the Washington Post writer kashowge by
the same people who are sponsoring this festival, would be
a deal breaker for me to show up at this festival.
The they're obviously the UH. These people are being offered
huge amounts of money, and the broader context here is
(05:20):
that the Saudi government has been doing a kind of
full court press, not just with comedians, but with athletes
and golfing events, sporting events. There's all sorts of people
there and they're making solved. You know, there's some movements
that they're starting to be you know, shipt a little
bit in their policies. And so this is just an
(05:42):
elaborate pr campaign where there is trying to use American
popular culture and entertainment to you know, make people think
of them not as the place where they chop up
people who criticize the government and cracked down on minorities
and limit women's free speech, but as the new Saudi Arabia.
(06:05):
And so if you were offered a million dollars, I
know Tim Dillon was offered, what he said, three hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars for one show, one night,
and I think he's on the low end. So if
you were offered one million dollars to go, would you
do it? If you if you went and you criticized
the Saudi government when you were there, would that change
(06:27):
the calculus. I know you want some guidance from me,
but I'm afraid I might just give you more anguish
and confusion. But I think I think it's I say
I wouldn't do it, but I'm not want to judge.
That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, so several thoughts there at a personal level. When
this was first announced, if they had come to me
and said, hey, I heard you have this really awesome podcast,
do you want to come cover it, I would have
said yes and not thought about it. As I've gotten
deeper into the story and talked about some of the
news threads and pulling on those, I think I would
be afraid to go now, even taking the money out
(07:08):
of it. And I don't know if that's spic about
the location personally, when I was at Sirius and million
years ago when the Olympics were in China, there was
light talk of us doing some radio work over there,
and people were afraid to go to China. And my
attitude twenty years ago was I'll go. They're not going
to lock me up. I'll go. I'll produce it. That'd
be great. You know, I get to go to China
on your dime, that'd be awesome. As I continue to
(07:29):
cover this as a story, I don't you know, I
don't know, like, yeah, you're some stupid podcaster who cares,
or you know, when somebody look at me, you know,
with a sad face. I don't know if I would
be comfortable going in terms of just pure finances of
here's a check, want to cover this comedy festival. You know,
I'll go to the Vancouver Comedy Festival. Yeah. I like money,
(07:50):
of course I like money. A separate story, I know,
maybe like third party, but I know of somebody who
was asked to work at I live golf event and
the paycheck was crazy, and I said, you know what,
hold your nose. That's life changing money and you can
pay off, you know, your college bills and whatever. So
(08:12):
I'm not taking the moral high ground, but I'm finding
I think you nailed it as usual. The optics are
just interesting. I don't know what to do with this.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I'm really struggling with what's really fascinating about it is
it's so related to what we're going through. Because on
one level, you know this, there's the government policies and
the corporate actors who are being spineless in this country
about standing up for speech or standing up for their artists.
But there's another level, and I know a little bit
(08:43):
of this. You know, I'm the child of a foreign
service officer. You know I grew up someone in a
qual and poor right next to Singapore, which has very
different attitude towards free speech that we do. You know,
I have Vietnamese members my family. There's all sorts of
attitudes about government censorship and crack downs are very different.
That doesn't mean I don't go to the I haven't
gone to these places, but it makes you think, and
(09:06):
we're now here, what about from the point of view
of the artist, of the individual, of the ordinary person
who's trying to get by is trying to figure out
that do you try to play within the rules that set?
Do you play along? Do you cut a deal or
do you push back? Do you fight? Do you fight?
(09:28):
Do you draw a line? You know where do if
you draw a line? Where do you draw a line?
These were once academic questions. They're no longer academic questions.
If you work for a law firm in this country
that cut a deal with Trump, what are you going
to do? If you work for a university that just
took away research for cancer, are you going to put
(09:50):
pressure on your administration? Are you going to write a letter?
Are you going to say nothing? Are you going to
try to do what you can in a small way?
And now our little silly world of comedy, we have
this great you know, the piece that I talked about
the Saudi Arabian Festival, you know, was primarily about looking
at the difference between Kimmel and Fallon. You have late
(10:12):
night hosts. All right, Clearly there is an attack, you know,
a government led attack against late night that is you know,
I would argue unprecedented. You know, there obviously have been
previous late night shows that have been you know, in
Broiland controversy, but this is something new. And what do
you do? Do you push back? Do you do you
(10:33):
criticize your bosses on air and fear getting taken off?
Do you try to play along? Do you try to
make your show more a political These are real question.
We're in it now and so this looking at what
these guys trying to figure out with the Saudi Festival,
it's like a microcosm for what's going on in our country. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And I've worked at places like Serious where the we're
all sorts of radio stations that covered some things, and
there might be a radio station that was not aligned
with your personal views. Do you just not work there?
Do you take the paycheck? I'm also looking at the
individual artists. You know, if you're Sebastian Manuscalco, you just
go and you do your thing. You're gab Iglesias, you
just go and do your thing.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
If you're Dave.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Chappelle, well, your thing kind of is political and you
have been known to do a big chunk about LGBTQ
plus are you doing it? Are you're not doing it?
What's Dave's act there?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
You know?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
This is all This is just such a fascinating topic.
It got a little covered by Kimmelgate, but I think
this is going to be a comedy thing.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Oh I would love to cover this festival. I mean,
it'd be fascinating. I'll be honest with you. I was
shocked that they I wasn't shocked, but I was. I
was surprised that they fired Tim Dollan because if on
the Saudis let them say whatever they want to say,
you get the pr win. You know, if you the
(11:58):
fact that you get to show Dave Chappelle or criticizement,
you could, I think. But it shows you how different
it is that they that they fired Tim Dillon, and
it does what I think, It puts more pressure on
the Dave Chappelle's and the Luisy Kays. We should say,
you know, you you were talking earlier about if you
got to feed your family. These are not comedians strongly
(12:19):
to feed their family.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, Kevin Hart doesn't need another paycheck. He's got enough work.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Like they did not, Like almost all of them. I
would say, it's clear they did not need to do
this festival. That is also plays into the calculus. I
would say, And you know now that Tim Dillon got fired,
does that change their thought about it? Do they not?
I mean if that happened in the US, if Columbia University,
(12:43):
you know, hired somebody and they told a joke and
then there was protests and they canceled it. And Dave
Chappelle was showing up a Columbia university, is there any
question that he would make the whole set about that,
you know, the oppressiveness of of you know, the Columbia
University cancel culture mob, etc. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
I think it's that the general public, even the comedy fans,
just haven't caught onto this. I noticed it during the summer.
I've been mentioning on and off. I truly did have
it as my opener on Monday, and then as I
was working on Monday Show on Sunday, I saw your piece.
There are a couple of things CBS wrote about it.
There's been a few blogs about it, but I don't
think this has registered yet.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah. No, Well maybe when it starts and when these
guys perform will be interesting to see what happens. And
considering the climate here, it's even more interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
The name that it pops out that really jumps off
the page for me. Well, well, we're Tim and Jessica
because of their sexuality, and Pete Davidson for the nine
to eleven connection. As we're recording today, what's on my
mind it is the it was my father's birthday. He
died thirty plus years ago from cancer. Sure, and I'm
not sure, you know, I'm not sure I would be
(14:03):
at the Lucky Strike Comedy Festival despite the paycheck. That
might just be a thing where, you know what, Johnny
Mack loves money. But you know, I'm not reading live
reads for AR fifteen's and I don't know if i'd
be at the cigarette festival just as a personal thing.
So I find Pete Davidson might just be a much
better person than me, but that juxtaposition to me just
(14:24):
keeps jumping off the page.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Yeah, the uh I hesitate to go. I mean there
the I don't know what the reason is and what
his politics about that are. You know, there's all sorts
of things. I mean, the there's also the problem, there's
a lot of I think a lot of these comedians
(14:48):
are working for places already that they don't support, and
they probably get immune to it. And I mean, you know,
you could take there's people who certainly could take I've
seen people who say, like, oh, if you're if you
you should you know, you shouldn't appear on the Joe
Rogan Experience. Joe Rogan has done the people who think
that Joe Rogan has done irreparable damage to the country
(15:14):
and the world. As we you know, are recording this
the day after we learned that Kyle Linoll causes autism.
And what is the responsibility of the artists if they
get you know, if if Jordan Jensen gets offered to
be on the Joe Rogan Experience, should she say no?
These are these are live questions, right and the you
(15:35):
know where you draw the line says something about who
you are and what you're willing to do. But they're
also not easy questions.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
No, and we saw over the weekend when we all
had Disney rage. I pointed this out. John Stewart separately
put it this on I'm not doing the John Stewart
still what joke, you know, peril thinkings more people can
sometimes come to the same line. But I was pointing out, Okay,
we're mad at ABC, which means we're mad at Disney,
So don't watch Monday Night Football. Cancel your Disney plus,
(16:04):
no more Star Wars, nor no more Marvel, no more
Red Zone. Does your morality on this end at Monday
night football?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Here's the thing the uh, you're exactly right. One of
the issues we have that sort of all of these
issues are related to, is is this one of kind
of corporate consolidation. Trump is using all these levers that
are wouldn't be there if it wasn't for the fact
that like a handful of companies control everything. And so yeah,
(16:35):
when you realize, yeah, boycotting Disney and ABC is gonna
is much a much bigger ask than a lot of
people probably think. That said, if there's another thing we've learned.
It's that Boycott's work. I do think that Bob Iger
changed course in part because of Boycott's And I also
(16:57):
think there's a danger to this sort of neolis stick
view that, oh, you know, it's all complicated, so we're
not going to draw any line. You know, everything is
you know, who ever, anyone who says they're they're not
going to do something on moral principle is you know,
a self righteous prig right'. I've really am kind of
(17:18):
sick and tired of like five If you want to
not take moral stands on this, I understand it. But
to judge people who do, who actually are putting themselves
at risk and in the process perhaps making a difference,
that that sort of pisses me off. And I think
(17:39):
you're seeing a really you know, in some ways, you
look at what happened. Kimmel got taken off the air,
and people sign petitions, the people that Santa Fleuve to
mock actors, celebrities, you know, people wrote articles, people ordinary
people cancel Disney Plus and posted and on social media,
(18:02):
you know, the most mocked thing in stand up comedy
virtue signaling posting something right, like how many times have
we heard about the post George Floyd posting the Black
squares and oh, these hypocrits screw you that really you
have to also say that had an impact and sometimes
getting politically being politically involved makes a difference and the
(18:26):
and I think that we this is the case where
part of the goal of authoritarian regimes is to scare
you and to make you feel powerless. And I think
one of the things that we've got to do now
is not fall for this idea that we have no power.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
We do have power.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
We we have our voice. We can speak out, we
can stay, we can say what our line is. We
can and it can vary. Maybe for some people it's
you know, they'll go with Joe Rogan, but they're not
going to go to you know there, or they're not
going to go to Saudi Arabia, or they they're not
gonna cancel Disney, but they're gonna sign a petition what
they People have a voice in this country and they
(19:07):
have to and they should use it and they shouldn't
feel like they have no control. And because of what
if they do, then we're in a really dark place.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well said, I'm trying to be a better host than
actually building the break, So we'll come back. We'll talk
late night. Jason Zinnaman is with The New York Times.
Let's dive in on late night. Let me just throw
a grenade to open it up to your fellow Americans.
You weren't watching Stephen Colbert anyway. I know it was
number one. I know you're so upset about it, but
you weren't watching at eleven thirty anyway? Is late night over?
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Oh my god, is late night? It seems like it's
more relevant than ever Johnny.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
This week, But you weren't watching Kimbell either.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I think Trump has made late night the tip of
the spear. It's it's more important. People are gonna walk.
We're on Tuesday, eleven o'clock tonight is Jimmy Kimmel's monologue.
You're gonna be watching it, Johnny Mack? Are you not?
Are you not gonna be watching it? Is everybody gonna
(20:06):
be watching it? Is it the most important piece of
comedy of twenty twenty five? Probably?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Probably? So let's not get it twisted like there's this
other lie that gets spread. I hope we can talk
about the substance of what happened. There's a lot of
bs from people who don't know what they're talking about,
and including from commentators who are like, no one's watching
the shows. Not true. Colbert had the high no one's
watching Everything has lower ratings than it did twenty years ago. Sitcoms,
(20:38):
your show everything, that's just a fact, right. The yes,
it's expensive and the economic models is not as good
as it used to be. But this is the highest
rated program in its time slot, Stephen Colbert, and it
got canceled. So it's not about that, right, there are
people watching. It's about something else, right, it's about the reason.
(21:00):
The reason they're being canceled is about something else. It's
about what they're saying. Right. So if you're using this
moment to say, oh, Late Night's irrelevant and it's no
one's watching it, one, you're lying. Two, you're missing the
fucking forest with the trees. It's the more relevant than
it's been in thirty fucking years. And so get with
(21:22):
the program this. You can't choose where like the action is.
The action is not on stand up specials to Netflix
right now. They have not released a single special since
this administration began that mattered remotely to ports politics in America,
what has mattered are these late night shows. So we
have to ask ourselves why is that.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
We both have fixed smiles on our face and while
we're doing this. So I'm just gonna poke and do
what I would do if we were doing this over beers,
because this is what I would do it over beers. Sure, yes,
Tonight's Jimmy Kimmel Tuesday Night Jimmy Kimmel is super important.
But a week from now, next Thursday, hey join me
tonight at eleven thirty five, Jamie Lee Curtis and some
band are coming by.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's last week's.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
News already, and we're back to does late night matter
in twenty twenty five? I get what you're saying about
the importance of it, and I was talking with Mark
Malkoff about it. I think there's still something to be
said for eleven thirty If you look at THEO Vaughn.
Clearly influential, clearly making a lot of money, clearly selling
a lot of tickets. But he's a podcaster and so
(22:26):
am I. It's not as impressive. It doesn't have the
statesmanship that eleven thirty five has, So I can argue
it either way. It's an important position, but Also, I
don't think people were watching it tonight to last night.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I guess sure. I guess my brushing you is, if
it's so unimportant, why did Trump go after it?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Because they're making fun of him?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Okay, a lot of people are making fun of him.
People are making fun of him on social media, people
are making fun of him on in comedy clubs. People,
But why did it go it? Like, you don't go
after something that does it matter? I think you have
to question your assumptions now, like it is not. Did
you watch the Adam Frielan show every week?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
No?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Okay, so that is a show that young people are
watching in a way and you can make the cases
relevant in a way that late night shows are not.
Right And certainly it went viral for this conversation with
Richie Torres about Israel. Right, there's a there is a
time and a place to say yes, shows on YouTube
that like are like that kind of show are relevant
(23:29):
to young people in a way that late night was
in the eighties. It's not as late night is not
as relevant to that. But that's not now. Like if
you're still saying late night is not relevant now, you're
missing the point. They it maybe never been more relevant
like we are now in an authoritarian moment. The Donald
(23:51):
Trump has picked has gone after it was Colbert and Kimmel.
That's the best piece of evidence for its relevance there. Now,
if you want to argue about ratings, we can do it,
and we could talk about numbers, right and I think
there's actually a case to be made. It sounds counterintuitive
because so many people have been saying nobody watches late
night shows. But you could argue that more people are
(24:15):
watching some form of late night television than they have
in twenty five thirty years or twenty five may twenty years.
If you include like you, if you look at like
at the end, you know, close to the election. If
you look at like what Seth Myers did online plus
his ratings on the show, plus clips, and you compare
(24:39):
it to the Letterman or to the Conan Letterman late
nights period of that same thing, it's not that different.
That's a different question. That isn't making money. So it's
not making it's making less money. There's no question to that.
But so when you say it's not relevant people are
watching what you it's not true. What you really mean
is the econdog anog model is not there, and I
(25:02):
don't think you really want to be saying that. And
the reason I feel very personally about this is what's
happened to my industry newspapers. There's more people reading about
like cultural news than ever before, but the economic model
fell apart, and so all these new sapers fell apart.
It's not because no one's reading them. And to understand
(25:23):
the economics. There's a whole other question has to do
with advertising rates and how digitally digital advertising rates are
much worse than print advertising rates versus. And the same
thing is going with going on in late night. But
that's a question of money, it's not a question of relevance.
So if you want to talk about money, but I
just reject the idea that this is not relevant. I
(25:46):
think we have to now be like, okay, this is
now very relevant, and you got and I do think
people have to pick a side. Wait, like are you
going to stand up? Are you going to stand up
against government censorship? Which is distinct cancel culture.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
This is why I love having you on because you
help me sort my feelings. As I've used that phrase already,
you point out I'm thinking one of my best birthday presents. Ever,
when I was a teenagers, I got a VCR, and
the point of the VCR was so that I didn't
have to stay up till one thirty in the morning
watching David Letterman. I could then watch it the next
day on tape literal tape, which really is no different
(26:23):
than watching Jimmy Kimmel's monologue the next morning on social
media clip. It's just a different form. So I think
you make a good point there. Let's talk about the money,
Stephen Colbert number one, it was that something else or
it's we're losing forty million dollars. This makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I mean, I think when it happened, there was this
debate that was the question, right and the uh I
think now post this Kimmel thing, it seems like a
silly thing to ask. Obviously, it's not like something else
is going on here and in another But at the
time I suspect did it was a silly question, And
the reason I suspected it was this. For the history
(27:05):
of late night television, the metric for success was one thing.
Ratings right. If the show was doing well, ratings were good.
If the show is doing bad, the rains. This is
from Steve Allen, from jad par to Johnny Carson to
Jay Leno to That's how we did it? That all
(27:25):
changed coincidentally the moment that Stephen Colbert got canceled Suddenly,
CBS after eighty years or whatever it is of asting
us to judge success or failure by ratings, asked us
to judge by a completely new metric, budgets. It's losing
forty million dollars. We never been asked to do this before.
(27:48):
And let's be honest here, Johnny, we are ill equipped
to judge it because we don't have an answer. We
don't know how much money it costs ten years ago.
We don't know how much the Morning Show costs. We
don't know how much an hour drama is cost or losing.
So basically, they're asking us to judge by this entirely
new metric that we're completely ignorant about. We have no
(28:08):
context for. My conclusion is it is I call bullshit.
I call bullshit. There's something. It's politics. It's politics right now?
Do I know? Do I think that the Late Show
was making money? No? Do I think the Late Show
is a healthy economic model?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Do I think Late Night is gonna stay the same
in the next ten years. Absolutely not like it costs
too much money to put on a show in the
ed sol of the theater. And there are all these
other models, particularly podcasts, that are much more financially viable.
Now there are other examples of entertainment which are which
(28:46):
lose money aka Broadway. Everyone knows you're gonna lose money
if you invest in a Broadway show. That forever for
the astuery of Broadway. The majority of Broadway shows lose money,
But people still do it because of other reasons. Right,
they think it's good for the culture. They like to
go to parties. It's the prestige. They're name and lights
(29:07):
whatever it is, right, And there was a time when
Maate Night was the prestige you had, like, Oh, this
is the face of the network. It's doing, it's responding
to the news, it's being it's reless. That has declined.
The prestige of late night shows has declined from the
days of Conan and Letterman. The artistic ambition of these
(29:30):
shows has declined, so that I think, in some ways
is more important than the dollars and cents, because you're
not if the prestige is down you're not willing to
lose the money as much. And then if the presceige
is down and you're getting attacked politically for it, and
you're as spineless as Dave Lebanon will call you corporate
(29:53):
pinhead weasel, then maybe you cut your losses and replace
it with a rerun.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Serious point. A second is I'm listening to you with
your passion, your cadence, and your vocal range. If they
ever make a John Stewart animated series, you can get
the voice work on that. You've got that down.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I apologize for yelling at you, John, I'm all mean
to be yelling you.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
I'm just just an Actually, we both have big smiles
on our face. This is just this is what we
would be doing at the bar and order another round
now and go back into it.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
And this is the way I show love. This is
the way Happy Russia, Shana Johanny back, this is the
way Jewish family show love.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And I'm doing my host job. I don't want to
just go yes, I agree, Jason, great point. Next topic, like,
I'm asking you questions and then shutting up because I
want to hear what you think specific to Colbert and
the money. Many people have made the point, do we
need the Ed Sullivan Theater? Do you need two undred staffers?
Can you do with one sixty? Could we do the
show four nights a week, three nights a week. Let's
double tape Wednesday and do two on Thursday. It's interesting
(30:49):
to me that they didn't stop off at any of
that and went straight to and you know what, we
can't afford this completely.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Let me tell you, in every other show they've asked
to make cuts. Some you've heard about, some you haven't.
So that's the first thing you do when you have
an issue. They didn't do that here, right, But let
me just also answer that question. I do think they
shouldn't be in the ed Solvent Theater. I mean, here's
a controversial hot take. David Letterman got worse moving from
(31:20):
thirty Rock to Ed Sullivan. It was too big a room.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Colbert got worse moving from a small intimate space in
the Colbert Report to the ed Solvent Theater. I get
the appeal to artists of doing work in the place
where the Ed Solvent was, with a beatles porch played,
putting on a big show. There's something wonderful about a
big show around Broadway. Trust me, I understand that, but
it doesn't. It isn't necessarily the best form for most
(31:46):
kinds of comedy. Some kinds it is, But I don't
think it's going to be a great artistic loss to
lose the Ed Sullivan Theater. And I do think by
the way network you might find is a big part
of the calculus here is selling the Ed Solivent Theater.
CBS is gonna maybe they'll sell that to a you know,
(32:07):
the Schubert's, the Neederlanders or a Broadway landlord, and they
can get a lot of money from that. And maybe
that's the real economics of it. Again, it's so oblique.
We don't know what's what the calculus here is. But
I think that I think that, you know, it's worth
saying that, Like there was this moment that ironically, I
(32:30):
would say reached its peak with the Dawn of the
Late Show, the Letterman's Late Show, where they felt like, oh,
we're printing money. This is an incredibly cheap form, that's
what's great about it. So we can we can pay
we can buy expensive theater, we can pay huge salary
for talent. We can say and they and you know
that time has passed what once the ads ad rates
(32:54):
went down. They can't do that. So now they're stuck
with this real estate, you know, in New York, it's
all real estate, you know, And they're gonna have to
downsize and adjust. And there's nobody who's better equipped to
downsize and adjust than comedians. Right. They don't need a
fancy theater. They don't need like that's the beauty of
(33:17):
podcasts like it. The reason that the comedians have dominated
that form is they don't need the bells and whistles.
They don't need an orchestra. It's not like forty second Street,
like you need a twenty piece orchestra and a long
line of dancers, high kicking dancers to really do justice
to one singular sensation and every little step we take.
(33:42):
You don't need that to do a great David Letterman monologue.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
I wonder if there was a Taylor Thomason butterfly effect.
Now let me scream from the mountaintops. I'm not blaming
Taylor Thomlinson. I'm not blaming Taylor Thomlinson. But Taylor Thomason's
twelve thirty show had been picked up and then, as
we're told, she changed her mind. What was the plan there?
Were you going to have a twelve thirty show but
no eleven thirty show? That's kind of weird. Were you
(34:07):
going to slide tailor up to eleven thirty that's differently weird.
That doesn't add up to me. Although having been in
corporate boardrooms with programming meetings, I could see a scenario
where once the band aid was pulled off twelve thirty,
I could see some Weisenheimer like me going do we
even need eleven thirty? And that that starting thing. I
(34:27):
don't know if that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
I think it's a very good theory I heard, I
saw it. Maybe it was usaw make a footing this
theory first, But I'm again, we don't know. There's some
the reality is most And you know, I got very
exercised earlier because I have strong opinions on what I
think happened, and I think every piece of information that
comes out I think supports my initial instinct, which is
(34:55):
this is fundamentally taking a step back political But it's
a multi callsal thing. And yeah, Taylor Thomlinson was part
of it, but that is as it's clearly a weird
It doesn't make It doesn't add up that they would
make her an offer at the same time they'd be
getting out of the late night business.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Yeah, that doesn't add up at all. Let's dive in
on ABC because the greater issue, other than the specifical
Jimmy Kimmel is, as you've pointed out, the important issue.
The FCC chair goes on a podcast, has some things,
then two hours later, Jimmy Kimmel's pulled off the air.
I mean that escalated quickly, you know, And that's not
a conversation where I was going. Now you know, we're
(35:33):
also losing money on Jimmy Kimmel. This was clearly the
affiliates overreacting to what Jimmy Kimmel actually said. He was
the line they apparently have a problem with the front
half about their trying to distance themselves. Probably could have
been phrased better. If I've said, if you'd speak into
a microphone long enough, you will say things you wish
he had phrased better. I'm going to listen back to
(35:55):
the edit of this show and go like, oh, I
misspoke there. I wish i'd clean that up. That's going
to happen, So maybe Jimmy could have made his point
more clearly on the first half, but in essence that's
a Trump joke. And then the FCC chair goes, I
don't know, you know, we can handle this the easy
way of the hard way, which is like your dad
in a bad mood. And then the affiliates bail and
then the strangest thing to me, having worked in the
(36:19):
entertainment industry, even though radio is not Hollywood, but radio,
it's the entertainment industry, you back your talent. You always
back your talent. Now we might pull you in the
back room and be like, hey, Jason, you got to
cut it out with the publicly. Hey, Jason's been a
great contributor to the Daily Comedy News podcast. He's a
recurring guest. We love the guy. We're going to have
(36:39):
him back, and you know we've got your back. You
always do that publicly to kick the face of your
network out the door. Within two hours, the FCC chair
could say whatever he wants. That's a reaction to the
government going you guys better cut it out, or you know,
bad things could happen.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I think what you just said everyone should be willing
to agree with that. You've got to back. You're like
the job, the core job. And I think, as someone
who writes for a newspaper, I believe that incredibly strongly,
Like I will, just like you've got to back your
writers even when they're wrong, right, even when they're wrong.
(37:18):
That doesn't mean you don't it don't run corrections, we
don't come up with different points of view, We don't
admit we're wrong. But the you need to support artists
and writers so they are willing to take risks. And
that's true in Late Night's Hue in your business to
my business, is true in for right wing left wing
(37:39):
it's true for that is how a large measure of
how these people should be judged. Now, one thing I
want to ask you, because I'm a little bit I've
been sort of confused or I'm not sure how what
I think about this. What Jimmy Kimmel actually said, Okay,
what even some people who defend him, the Andrew Schultz,
(38:02):
who I think has had like a tried to kind
of do a both side on this, but all fundamentally
defended his right to free speech right. But he also said,
and I think some other people have said that when
he said the killer of Charlie Kirk that the Trumps
is trying to make it so the killer of Charli
Hirk is anything but Maga, Right, Yes, did you think
(38:27):
that what he was saying was the killer of Charlie
Kirk is Maga.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
As I listened to the edit here, I think this
would be a good time to replay what Jimmy Kimmel said,
and then I'll go back and pick up with Jason's question.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the
Maga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered
Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and
everything they can to score political points from. And in
between the finger pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the
White House flew the flags at half staff, which some criticism,
but on a human level, you can see how hard
(39:04):
the President is taking this.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
I condun't have that a lot of your friend. Charlie
Kirk asked sir personally. How are you holding up over
the last day and a half, Sir, I think very good.
And by the way, right there, you see all the
trucks they've just started construction of the new ball room
for the White House.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Did you think that what he was saying was the
killer of Charlie Kirk is MAGA. I do not.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I believe Jimmy Kimmel was saying that the politicians or
the conservative speakers were trying to make it clear that
the shooter was not one of them. I think Jimmy
was saying, that is what they are saying. I don't
think Jimmy was saying that the shooter was Mega. I
think he was saying that the politicians are trying to
make it clear to everybody else who might be misconstrued
(39:50):
that the shooter is not Maga. And then the funny
part was the president's reaction to how do you feel
about the death of friend Charlie Kirk? Check out this
beautiful ballroom. I'm building that that's the joke. But I
don't think Jimmy was implying something. Could he have phrased
it better? I think that's clear, But I don't think
(40:11):
there was any malice there at all.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Well see that. I think that is looking forward to
tonight where to see what he says, which everyone's going
to be watching. I think that's going to be the
thing to watch for because I agree with you, but
clearly other people disagree clearly. I I you know, I
don't think I can say it's all bad fate. I
think some people really did take him to say that,
(40:34):
and I think it was as you say it was.
It was clumsily put and it opened up this window
for him to be misinterpreted. A lot of it is
bad fait, clearly, But I think what he's going to
do is he's going to clarify that. I think he's good.
I think he's going to say I did not mean
to play because I think that is first of all,
(40:56):
it doesn't seem to be. It's not true, and speculating
on that is is not a good thing to do,
in my opinion and by all evidence, his first reaction
to the assassination was to express sympathy and to say,
can we just be all share a remorse, just feel
just you know, not politicize this, but call this a tragedy.
(41:17):
So the idea that he was doing that seems like
that's not what he was trying to do. But that
doesn't mean that it didn't come off sounding like that
to some people. And one of the things that's been
frustrating about what's happened to he got taken off the air.
Is a lot of people. There's a certain numb of
people who saw what he said, but most people didn't.
And there's a lot of people who are saying, oh,
(41:38):
I disagree with what he said, but I support his
right to say it, which is better than saying nothing
or not saying you support is ready to say it.
But I think it's also I think I think unfair
to him because I think it's more accurate to say
he didn't put this well and he was confusing in
his delivery. But his intent, which is clear to me,
(42:00):
was not to say that. It was just it was
that he was commenting on the politicization of the killen.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Now around the same timetable on the Fox News channel,
Brian Killmead on live television made a comment about I'm
paraphrasing here, but the gist of it was involuntarily lethal
injections to the homeless. Excuse me what now. He apologized
for it pretty quickly, but he wasn't removed from air.
There's no outrage about that. But you know, we should
(42:28):
round up the homeless and inject them and kill them.
Excuse me what? To me, that's far worse than even
if we think Kimmel was saying what some people think
he was saying, and I don't. I don't think the
let's round up people and shoot them with lethal injections
is far worse.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I mean, obviously I agree, but even the fact that
we're discussing it is sort of a concession, like this
is not fundamentally my interpretation is this is not about
I don't think Among the good faith readings of that
comment are includes Brendan Carr from the SEC like he
(43:06):
was looking for something to take out late night talks
to us because Trump wanted it, which he said explicitly.
This is Sherlock's Holmes mystery. This is couldn't be more obvious.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Me kibble your next.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
It's like, it's so maddening that we have to sit around.
I mean, it's interesting to exp from like a craft
point of view, to be like, well, did he say
something that was actually he said is quickly. But the
bigger picture we should not lose sight of is he
was he got shut down because of the governments wanted
to shut up its critics. This is government censorship and
(43:48):
it's and it's clear as day, and if it could
happen to him, it could happen to you, and it's
He's not the first either, He's I mean he's not
or the most important. Look at the universities, look at
the law firms, look at companies. This is now what
life is in this country and we need to figure out.
(44:10):
You know. Obviously, I think it's like, I think he's
going to clarify it tonight, But I think that the
problem with the Disney response is Disney started, Disney starts
to treat this attack as a good faith concern over
you know what he said, They've already kind of lost
(44:30):
the plot.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
I do want to say, as somebody who's been a
manager at broadcast companies, you do back your talent. There
is a line in all situations. There are exceptions. So
what might be an example of where you might not
back your talent? As a total hypothetical, And I always
use the example of the Martians for a reason because
I'm not trying to do hate speech, but it's the
way I illustrate hate speech. If on the Saturday Night
(44:54):
Live premiere, one of the main casts loses their mind
and goes into a taia tribe about the Martians, those
green skin antenor freaks are horrible and they're eating the cats.
That might be a situation where NBC and Lord Michaels
might say, you know what, that performer is no longer
part of the SNL cast. That might not be a
situation where you're going to go in and back the talent.
(45:17):
It might be a situation where you do back the
talent and go obviously, so and so is having personal
issues and lost their mind on live TV, and we
apologize to the moortion community. That could be a scenario.
But that also could be a scenario for a dismissal
where we're not going to back hate speech, which is
not at all what we're talking about in any of
these cases.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
I agree, but let me say something that let me
give you, let me compliment a network an exec. Okay,
I didn't like a lot of the Dave Chappelle specials
about the obsessive focus on trans stuff. I said so
in print right more than once. But I also think
(45:59):
that then Ted Serandos standing but not pulling the special,
not you know, standing by him was the right move
that even I think, and I think she deserves he
deserves credit for that. The in the same way. You know, also,
he could be like you can also say I disagree
with him, which which is what happened, by the way,
(46:21):
with HBO. Once Eddie Murphy got a protested for his
for his Delirious where he made incredibly offensive remarks that
age HBO president. They eventually apologize it, and so did
the corporate did, but they didn't take it off the service.
And I'm not saying there's never a time to take
someone off of service, or to take someone off the network,
(46:42):
or there's no line you can't cross to get you fired.
Of course they're you know that, I think, and their
boycotts are away for people or another form of speech.
But as somebody who cares about artistic freedom, I would
like the suits or my editors are the people who
run your podcast video to err on the side of
(47:04):
letting people say what they want to say, even if
they disagree with it, even if it's even a you know,
obviously there's a line that goes too far, but I
think they The Kimmel thing didn't even come remotely close.
The Chaffellevee came closer, and I still think the right
response is to fight it with boycott's speech criticism. That's
(47:30):
the way a healthy democracy works. And so the people
who don't like Jimmy Kivel had many many forums to
express their dislike of him. They have Magnum before. They
can also not watch them, but they also could put
can boycott them where they can create. And I'm sure
they're goynew you know, they have many, many ways to
(47:52):
do it. That's not what happened here. That's the difference.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
You know. I'm excited about the reverse boycott because I
do have shows to make it a cast of beaeff.
And to that point, let me get in one more
break with Jason Zenmann from The New York Times. Jason,
we're losing Mark Marin at the wrong time. He just peaked,
I think with his last comedy special as the Best.
I feel like he's the right guy. He was, you know,
(48:18):
not being shy about his opinions about some of his
fellow podcasters. And I think he's bothered that his fellow
podcasters became podcasters because of the success of the medium
he helped build. And here we are as we head
into October, and Mark's gonna walk away from us. Don't
leave Mark. How do we convince Mark Maron to stay?
We need Mark Mann.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
I wouldn't be shocked if he does come back in
some form, don't you think. I don't think the guy
can stay away. He's like, yeah, he's on Instagram live,
he's kind, you know, he likes being in the mix,
and he's at the at the height of this. I mean,
his podcast run was an all timer for in support
of this new special. I think he you know, I
(48:58):
can't think of a more successful podcasts, you know, just
let get a great example of like criticizing all these
people and starting conversations, getting pushed back, having back and forth,
going on their shows to some of them, you know,
going to talk about Howie Mendell bad friends. These It
(49:19):
was interesting to see like a genuine conversation about and
to see what their reaction to it was. So I
don't know, we'll see, we'll see. I agree. I think
it's an odd time for him to leave, because I
do think there's like a huge lane for like that
kind of outspoken liberal political comedy voice, and it's going
(49:40):
to be filled. It's going to be filled, we're bother
by Marring or somebody else.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
I could see the him being burnt out on prepping
for guests and doing that. But maybe do something like
Bird doesn't just pop on Monday morning and do twelve
minutes about whatever's on your mind and doesn't have to
be fancily produced. Just open up the mic, rip and go.
But yeah, weird. Time to walk off. Couple of things
I want to hit. I know you're on the John
Marco SIASI train. That special was fantastic. Yeah, he's been
(50:07):
one of my favorites. I feel like this is a
really jerky thing to say, but I'm just being honest here.
So on my show. I saw him for the first
time at the Montreal Comedy Festival New Faces, and I
have been saying like, no, this is the guy. He's amazing,
and I feel like he's making me look good. And
that's such a jackass thing to say.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Well, I've been there, I've been there, I know, I
know the feeling of it, and yeah, you look good.
I think it's a it's a great special. It's doing
really well. I see it's like past half million views,
and I think he's a good example of somebody that
does all the nonsense that you need to do in
(50:48):
twenty twenty five, the social media stuff, the crowd work,
politics and what you see in this special is he
also works hard at the craft of comedy, at refining jokes.
It's a it's a punchline, dense set. It's I mean,
it's actually what's really exciting about it is I think
(51:10):
it's a step up from his previous work. But I
don't think it's actually I think he's got another gear
because he he is, you know, a very thoughtful guy
that has things to say, and this special is not
you know, this special is more about jokes. I would argue,
(51:31):
and not to say that there's not things to say
in it. And he talks about his dysfunctional family and
he talks about but he I think he actually has
a lot of range as a comic, which is what
I think maybe you were seeing, is that he can
do all these different things. He's he's act out's physical puns,
you know, the you know, crowd work. That he has
(51:53):
all this rate. How he can be like a political comic.
He could just be a straight up potical comic. The
he could be club he can be all tis. He's
obviously theater obsessed, so he blurs a lot of lines.
And I think what's cool about this special is it's
him showing off his sort of Club Comic Chops.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
I'm just gonna move on because we're tight on time.
I did two more things I want to hit coming
off the Emmys. Can you help me talk Nate pergetsie
off the ledge that he's going to stop being a
stand up and he's going to build a theme park.
Because I've said this, I'm going to ten years from
now be like, remember when nateer gets he thought he
was going to build a theme park. Nate, you got it.
You're at the peak, man. Just play the theaters. It's
all good. I think we're now thirty seconds past peak. Nate.
(52:37):
They pulled out the cherry host of the Emmys. I
don't think it went well, and you're a great stand up.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Just do that, dude, I mean it's I do wonder
what he thinks. Let me just for the sake of
fun podcast clashing disagreement, let me play Devil's Advocate. Ratings
were up eight percent, I think, even though all all
the critics seemed to dislike it, even though he seemed
(53:04):
uncomfortable and he seemed we can debate for another time.
The central bit of the Emmys, which I actually think
I'm a little bit of an anomaly on. But I
do agree he was the wrong person to deliver that bit,
but it reached. It was judged by the success we
mentioned earlier, the sixth secta metric that we've always judged
by ratings. It worked, and I'm sure the Emmys are
(53:27):
gonna want him back next year. Now, he also was
this guy who had gotten great reviews and until this
Emmys were suddenly a lot of people who didn't know
who he was had maybe a bad feeling about him.
So I don't I'm not sure he saw that as
a success, but so yeah, I agree. Will he stick
(53:48):
to doing theme parks and movies? We'll see. Maybe after
a movie comes out and it doesn't do well, he
might have a change of heart.
Speaker 1 (53:57):
Last one, I've started a segment called comedy stock market.
I won't have you do any sales because you're a
positive kind of guy. But in the comedy stock market,
who should we be buying a proverbial stock in comedy?
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Oh my god, I don't know. I mean, I think
Siasi is a good is definitely a guy to buy stock,
and he's on the he's on the ascent, and there's
too many people. But right, but this week, since the
special came out. He's somebody who is on the rise.
I think, you know, I'll just shout out another one
who I liked, Dusty Sleigh. Oh, yes, absolutely, who's a
(54:30):
great comic and is in the the Nate universe. But
somebody who who's special I think deserves more attention.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
All right, Jason Zenniman. You can read him in the
New York Times, especially if you want to prechape a Saturday.
You can read a couple of paraphts. And thank you
for that. I'm gonna say this on air. This is
the best hour of this podcast ever. This was just
a wonderful conversation. It was thoughtful, it was respectful, We
let each other speak, We had smiles on our faces.
(54:58):
There was nothing antagonistic. Don't at end of the text.
This was a good, healthy discussion. Always great to have
you on. I appreciate it, man.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
I am flattered to hear you say that, because, as
you know, I am a fan of this podcast, a
regular listener. So I'm very flattered and I appreciate do
you giving me a fortune to get some irrational anger
off my chest?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Man wasn't that great? And I forgot to record a
proper clothes. I'm sitting out on the back deck trying
to get some fresh air for the first time in
a week, and cleaning up the edit, and I'm like, oh,
I can't just knock out like that, So this is
the proper close. See you later.
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