November 21, 2025 • 14 mins
Johnny Mac critiques Sebastian Maniscalco's reliance on exaggerated facial expressions and discusses Maniscalco's fear of failure despite his success. The podcast also tackles the challenges comedians face in sustaining high-quality content, citing examples from Hulu specials. It explores the broader comedy landscape, featuring insights from Jim Gaffigan on balancing comedy and politics, Louis CK's performance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival, and Josh Johnson's career shaped by the internet. The podcast's Comedy Stock Market segment advises investing in rising comedy talents like Josh Johnson, Adam Sandler's dramatic ventures, Kenan Thompson, and even President Trump's comedic potential.
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Thanks to our sponsors!
Raycon Earbuds
Underdog Fantasy Promo Code DCN
Blue Chew Promo Code DCN
Talkspace promo code Space 80
For Uninterrupted Listening, use the Apple Podcast App and click the banner that says Uninterrupted Listening. $4.99/month
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, I'm Johnny Mack with your
daily comedy news out today on Hilarious. Now, don't forget
the Hilarious Comedy brand is where you go when you're
on your way down. We've got a lot of proof here.
Sebastian maniscalgoes, it ain't right. This is the trailer that
(00:23):
radicalized me against Sebastian maniscalgo. Please stop making stupid faces.
You can't see the faces on an audio podcast, but
you can almost hear them. Let's listen some edits here.
I have a mild case of sleep appning. This is
where I'm at. I'm gonna dum tap my mouth shut
(00:44):
so I don't pass away in my sleep. If someone
came to rob my house, they would look at me
and go, someone was already here. Let's go. I went
to a drug store today. I took out cash, by
the way you take out cash nowadays, like kryptonite. This
kid was in his early twenties. He's like, what is that.
I said, it's money. It's used for goods and services.
(01:05):
Some people do venmo. Maybe you went out to dinner,
somebody paid and then the rest of the group said no, Well,
Venmo you later, No, you paid me, no deadline, ass
Abashian Maniscalco. Are you able to enjoy your success? He said,
And I'm not, mister positivity. It's very fashionable nowadays on
Instagram to be like, oh, I get up and I
(01:25):
do my affirmations and I have a vision board. It's
not really my style. My fear is failing. When I succeed,
I feel like it's gonna go away. It's hard to
sustain success. There's an expectation like you're putting out a
Hulu special. This better be equal or better than the
last one. It's a lot of pressure. Now. What we've
learned from the Hulu specials is it's not going to
be better than the last one. Name one Hulu special
(01:46):
that was better than the artist's previous special. I'll wait,
Actually I can't wait, because then they'll be dead air.
You can email me on the side, or you can
hit the Facebook group Daily Comedy News podcast group. I'll
push all my chips into the middle of the table here.
In June of this year, BuzzFeed made a list of
the hilarious specials Jim gaff against the Skinny No Way
that's his best, Bill Burrs dropped dead years as his
(02:07):
worst and now Sebastian Maniscalco. Sebastian were born funny or
is it something you learned, he told Deadline. This is
an innate ability. I don't think you can learn to
be funny. I was funny around my family and friends,
and I was funny when I had to give a
book report in front of the class. I was an
extremely shy kid. People think comedians are going to be
the center of attention, or they think, oh, you must
be great at parties and really not. I'm miching to
get out because I don't want to do the chit chat.
(02:28):
I was at a kid's museum over the weekend. I
find myself uncomfortable talking to the parents there because I'm
just not a chitchat guy. Sebastian, do you regret making
any past jokes? He said, I don't listen. You're gonna
offend people. You can't control it. I do a joke
about my father putting andy freeze on bolognay and killing
raccoons in the garden. The people labeled him as some
guy who's killing animals. He never did that. I actually
heard the story from somebody else. I find it strange
(02:49):
people take the stuff so seriously. About eighty five percent
of it is stories that have happened in my life.
But there are stories that I've heard and taken bits
and pieces from, or I've over exaggerated things that might
not have happened but are rooted in truth. What was
I watching? I was watching some comedy special the other
night and I felt like none of it was real
and I just couldn't last with it. I can't remember
(03:09):
what it was, but yeah, I need my jokes grounded
in something. Yeah. I understand that the stories are comedy.
I understand they're exaggerated for effect, but you gotta have
some semblance of reality in there. This is gonna bother me. Now.
Who was I watching? I actually had paused. I went
in my Netflix app. It wasn't Netflix, so I think
it was something on Amazon Prime. I think I switched
while watching The Knicks recently and switched over there. So
(03:31):
whatever they put in front of you on Amazon anyway,
it wasn't good. Sebastian doing the full Court Press this week.
He got an US Weekly cover story where he's making
a stupid face. Why why do you have to make
a stupid face? You're nice looking man. Just smile. You
don't have to make a stupid face. Sebastian says, at
the end of the day, I just want to make
people laugh. He stays away from current events and politics
because I've always thought whatever my father's doing is a
(03:53):
hell of a lot funnier than what the president is doing.
You're getting in over the head with bad news and politics.
When people go out for a night of entertainment, they
want to escape. I'd rather talk about my experiences than
what's happening with the current administration. Just doesn't sound fun. Hey, look, man,
President Trump is just trying to make NBC twelve thirty
grade again. Is that not what we want? We had
Letterman and Conan and I don't know what Jimmy did
(04:14):
there for five minutes, But this seth myers. This is
not the Letterman show we grew up with. What are
you doing? Let's make NBC twelve thirty grade again? I
think the President's doing a great job on this issue.
Sebastian tells us I just wanted to do stand up
for a living. That was the goal. I never expected
to be doing these big shows. I concentrated on being
the best comedian I could possibly be. And everything after
that was kind of gravy interesting premise from Cracked dot com.
(04:37):
They floated out there that there's no number one comedian
right now. I think it's interesting. Is Dave Chappelle not
the number one comedian right now? Let me know what
you think. Daily Comedy News podcast group. By the way,
some of you are getting the questions wrong. Are There
are a couple questions there to make sure that you're
not a pornbot. Most people get the one right about
what do you seek, but you're getting the other ones wrong.
(04:58):
I'll give you a hint. Ever seen Bob Spurgers. No
one has. It's a hoax, okay. Crack points out there
are touring comics like Matt Rife and Nate Pergetzi of
a tight grip bond ticket sales and TikTok followers, but
haven't yet crossed over into TV and film. There are
the folks like stavros Helkis and Caleb Heron who balanced
comedy podcasts with continued pushes into Hollywood. Plenty of comedians
(05:20):
right now or finding success without being the number one anything.
Crack says that's not a bad thing, as we've seen.
Once a comedian becomes ultra wealthy, they tend to make
some pretty disappointing choices. Yeah, like a lot of them
went to the Riod Comedy Festival and played there. Fortunately,
YouTube videos can subvert the need to perform at the
Riod Comedy Festival. The Wall Street Journal asked Louis c
K about performing at the Riod Comedy Festival. Their question, though,
(05:45):
did you do the same material that the reporter had
recently saw? C K said, same set. I didn't really
change anything. I had a really profound experience there. The
night before in my show, I went to a local
comedy club called the Comedy Pod. This guy who runs
it said there was no stand up four years ago.
Now they do like twelve shows a week and it's
never not packed. They went from zero comedians to like
three hundred dedicating their lives to it. The journal was
(06:06):
curious what the material is. C K said. Most of
the comics were in Arabic and a few in English.
They were doing jokes about being married and how life
is hard, like any other comedians, but without the swagger.
There's a raspiness to American comedy. It's kind of defensive
and f everybody I've traded in that, but they didn't
have that. They were with their audience and the crowds
were excited. It felt like comedy in the eighties. Here.
I saw a guy at the club who reminded me
(06:28):
of a young Richard Pryor doing pantomime and stuff that
was really funny. When I did the Big eight thousand
Seed arena, I asked if he could do five minutes
in Arabic so the audience could see their own comedians.
But word came back from the powers above the festival,
absolutely not. He could work in English, but not in Arabic.
Apparently the interview just glossed over that, because the rest
of the quote is then I asked for some Arabic
pop as my walk on song, and they said absolutely not.
(06:50):
They picked back in Black by ACDC instead, and apparently
we glossed over that too. The journal's next printed question
is people will assume a big paycheck was the real
reason he went there. C K said, I can make
the same money anywhere I made over there, just might
take two nights instead of one and go into the
Saudi Arabian desert for one gig. Is it pain? In
the next way, to make money. I had to be
in Montreal the next night. I literally went from the
(07:12):
stage to a plane to Montreal to the stage. I'm
not going through that for a paycheck. Variety waxed Jim
Gaffigan's car pretty well, we'll pick it at this show
over the next few days. The top here politics, Jim.
Generally you're not a political comedian, but last year you
played Tim Walls on SNL, etcetera, etcetera. Jim said, I've
always liked the fact that at my shows a lesbian
couple could sit down to a Mormon family and enjoy
(07:33):
the stand up I'm doing. But I do find politics fascinating.
We live in an age where you can't really articulate
anything without being misconstrued. My best friend from childhood was
furious I did the Al Smith dinner. He said, I
can't believe you didn't destroy Trump, and I'm like, I
know it's not going to change anything. And the task
was to attack both sides in a setting where you're
surrounded by billionaires. The Tim Walls thing I was within
the environment of SNL, and there's a cultural interpretation of
(07:54):
every sketch. I intellectually know this. No one's going to
listen to me. At the same time, I want to
be able to look my children in the eyes and
say I didn't allow some horrible thing to happen. I
also feel comfortable that people know my views, but I
don't know if me being an advocate helps. Like with
the Mamdani thing that ended up being very divisive. I
remember seeing Stave and all those guys supporting Mundanami, and
I'm like, I don't know if that's helping him. Maybe
I'm being naive. Varieady said, you have guys like Andrew
(08:16):
Schultz and Theo Vaughan interviewing politicians on their podcast. You say,
no one's listening to you, but maybe people are. Jim said,
people are coming to a show off a break from
some of this drama. That's not to say there aren't
great comedians to talk about social commentary. The spirit of
George Carlin is very important. I remember when Trump was
first elected. My opening act had some political jokes. During
twenty sixteen and seventeen, the audience would kind of look
at the ceiling. The jokes were well constructed and they
weren't on one side or the other, but it was
(08:37):
just too much. People are looking at a break from that.
They're not ignoring the serious issues, but they're going at
least I can go see Jim Gaffigan and hear him
complain about being a parent. That's not to say he
doesn't care about someone being tackled on the streets. It
just means maybe people want to break from that. And
now what's interesting is Jim said all that without promoting
a burbon. So that's something. Josh Johnson was on Trevor
Noah's podcast. Trevor said, when I look at you, this
(08:59):
is the perfect example, Like if you tell me if
I'm wrong, but I feel like this version of Josh Johnson,
like the person we know you as today, it wouldn't
exist the same if the Internet wasn't what it was now.
Josh said, I know exactly what you mean. And I
think about that a lot because I had found some
mainstream and like legacy media success, but not enough to
live the way that I'm living or make the choices
that I make. The pair talked about how the benchmarks
in the industry have changed. Josh said, the ways in
(09:19):
an industry could elevate a person along the way, add
a lot of that stuff, and then there was a
gap in between does he have his own shows, you're
writing a show, is he's selling shows? Is he a
touring headline comedian? And so there was a gap there.
The Internet closed that gap. The people close that gap.
(09:44):
Comedy stock Markets, Thank you, Bert Reynolds. Now, I feel
like Comedy stock Market can get kind of negative, and
that's not the spirit of the show. I'm here to
be positive. So you know, I'm not going to tell
you to sell your Sebastian Maniscalco because he makes stupid faces.
Don't do that. Let positive. This week, Let's buy just Johnson.
We just talked about him. A lot of good buzz
(10:04):
on him, a bright career ahead. Let's load up on him.
Let's buy Adam Sandler, the great dramatic actor. There's still
nothing but good buzz on this Jake Kelly movie. Let's
get in front of it and buy a little more Sandler.
And last week I told you to buy Keenan Thompson, right,
that was just a good vibes and then he announced
that sports thing with Kevin Hard I told you about
earlier in the week. So if you have bought some Thompson,
(10:26):
you made a couple hypothetical bucks on the comedy stock market.
Why don't we buy some more Keenan Thompson, and let's
buy some comedy stock in President Trump, he's had a
bit of a rough period with some of the things
in the news, but when it comes to comedy, he's
trying to make NBC twelve thirty great again. And I
think we need to support the president as we try
and get back to the good old days of Letterman
(10:48):
and Conan style comedy at twelve thirty and not what's
going on now. So those are the recommendations by Sandler,
by Josh, buy Keenan, by Trump. That's your comedy stock
market for this week. Stewart did a panel at the
ninety two y. He was talking about management at Paramount
Global and said, I don't know that you can feel
the other humans in the room. Former Viacom chief executive
(11:10):
Tom Freston agreed with John. Stewart said we're droughting in data.
You put up a show, and executives of all this
data saying you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that.
Stuart said to Fresden, you seem to have a connection
to the artist and artistry. The Silicon Valley ethos is
more steeped inefficiency. They walk in and go how many
people work here? Eight thousand? Good make it too. It's
not really tied to the value. Freston said. They didn't
come to their jobs with a desire to do storytelling.
(11:32):
Freston said, it looks like Warner Brothers is going to
disappear and get gobbled up by paramount. Stewart cut in
and said, which is a fantastic company. I can't speak
more highly of them. I think they should gobble up
all them and hand them directly to the president. Stuart
choked him. I being fired talk show host is a
very tenuous business right now. I don't know if there
was a tweet that went out from the FCC right now.
Freston said, data brings in a cast of different kinds
(11:53):
of characters to run the show, and the soulfulness that
we felt and enjoyed has melted away a little bit.
Last weekend during FU I was emailing back and forth
with Paul the listener, Hello, Paul, thank you for listening.
Paul was giving me the business a little going basically
paraphrasing here, Hey, bout the time you talk about skank Fest,
And I was very defensive, and I was like, look, man,
I've talked about skank Fest every year. And then I
(12:14):
took a screenshot of my phone where I have Lewis J.
Gomez's phone number. I'm like, I know this guy a
little bit. Not saying we're tight, but I know him.
But apparently I dropped a Louis Gomez at some point
last week and he reminded me it's Lewis j. Okay,
we got that straightened up. Michael Ian Black has a substack.
Michael wrote under the headline the a Hole who Said Yes.
(12:36):
Mister Black apparently really enjoyed skank Fest. He wrote, I
find myself being skanky. I'd never heard of the festival
before being invited to participate, and I was initially a
little concerned about affiliating myself with skankingess, but fit I
know how to get gross. I think my response to
the initial email was something like I'd be an a
hole to say no, and so here I am the
a hole who said yes. Michae Lean Black writes from
(12:59):
a comedian's one of the lovely things about comedy festivals
is that many comics, such as myself don't get much
of an opportunity to hang out with other comedians. So
when these things pop up, I like to go for
no other reason to see folks haven't hung out with
in a while. Last night, for example, I got to
catch up with fellow Kid in the Hall Scott Thompson.
Michael writes, Yes, I'm joking when I say fellow kid
in the Hall. I make the joke because of some
(13:20):
of you know the project for which I most often
recognize as for being a member of the Kids in
the Hall, a show I was never on. I also
got to catch up with a great Doug Stanhope, so
I had a load of Rich Voss and Bonnie MacFarlane.
I met Shane Gillis, who's much taller than that I
would have thought. I always thought he had some strong
five nine energies, so I was surprised to see him
clocking in around six to three. Black Rights with a
(13:40):
name like skang Fest, the vibe is unsurprisingly somewhere between
a comedy club midnight show and an insane clown posse concert.
It's giving you ahead, Michael Ian Black Rights. There are
so few shows he get off the stage and feel
like you did what you envisioned in your head years ago.
I remember Chris Rock was talking about this. He said
that a comic might have two shows a year which
they felt like they nailed it two. Chris is a
much better comic than Olliver be so for me that
(14:02):
number is more like one, maybe one half. Sounds like
it was a good time at the skang Fest. Paul.
Thank you for listening normal episodes all weekend. Meet you
back here in the morning.
Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, I'm Johnny Mack with your
daily comedy news out today on Hilarious. Now, don't forget
the Hilarious Comedy brand is where you go when you're
on your way down. We've got a lot of proof here.
Sebastian maniscalgoes, it ain't right. This is the trailer that
(00:23):
radicalized me against Sebastian maniscalgo. Please stop making stupid faces.
You can't see the faces on an audio podcast, but
you can almost hear them. Let's listen some edits here.
I have a mild case of sleep appning. This is
where I'm at. I'm gonna dum tap my mouth shut
(00:44):
so I don't pass away in my sleep. If someone
came to rob my house, they would look at me
and go, someone was already here. Let's go. I went
to a drug store today. I took out cash, by
the way you take out cash nowadays, like kryptonite. This
kid was in his early twenties. He's like, what is that.
I said, it's money. It's used for goods and services.
(01:05):
Some people do venmo. Maybe you went out to dinner,
somebody paid and then the rest of the group said no, Well,
Venmo you later, No, you paid me, no deadline, ass
Abashian Maniscalco. Are you able to enjoy your success? He said,
And I'm not, mister positivity. It's very fashionable nowadays on
Instagram to be like, oh, I get up and I
(01:25):
do my affirmations and I have a vision board. It's
not really my style. My fear is failing. When I succeed,
I feel like it's gonna go away. It's hard to
sustain success. There's an expectation like you're putting out a
Hulu special. This better be equal or better than the
last one. It's a lot of pressure. Now. What we've
learned from the Hulu specials is it's not going to
be better than the last one. Name one Hulu special
(01:46):
that was better than the artist's previous special. I'll wait,
Actually I can't wait, because then they'll be dead air.
You can email me on the side, or you can
hit the Facebook group Daily Comedy News podcast group. I'll
push all my chips into the middle of the table here.
In June of this year, BuzzFeed made a list of
the hilarious specials Jim gaff against the Skinny No Way
that's his best, Bill Burrs dropped dead years as his
(02:07):
worst and now Sebastian Maniscalco. Sebastian were born funny or
is it something you learned, he told Deadline. This is
an innate ability. I don't think you can learn to
be funny. I was funny around my family and friends,
and I was funny when I had to give a
book report in front of the class. I was an
extremely shy kid. People think comedians are going to be
the center of attention, or they think, oh, you must
be great at parties and really not. I'm miching to
get out because I don't want to do the chit chat.
(02:28):
I was at a kid's museum over the weekend. I
find myself uncomfortable talking to the parents there because I'm
just not a chitchat guy. Sebastian, do you regret making
any past jokes? He said, I don't listen. You're gonna
offend people. You can't control it. I do a joke
about my father putting andy freeze on bolognay and killing
raccoons in the garden. The people labeled him as some
guy who's killing animals. He never did that. I actually
heard the story from somebody else. I find it strange
(02:49):
people take the stuff so seriously. About eighty five percent
of it is stories that have happened in my life.
But there are stories that I've heard and taken bits
and pieces from, or I've over exaggerated things that might
not have happened but are rooted in truth. What was
I watching? I was watching some comedy special the other
night and I felt like none of it was real
and I just couldn't last with it. I can't remember
(03:09):
what it was, but yeah, I need my jokes grounded
in something. Yeah. I understand that the stories are comedy.
I understand they're exaggerated for effect, but you gotta have
some semblance of reality in there. This is gonna bother me. Now.
Who was I watching? I actually had paused. I went
in my Netflix app. It wasn't Netflix, so I think
it was something on Amazon Prime. I think I switched
while watching The Knicks recently and switched over there. So
(03:31):
whatever they put in front of you on Amazon anyway,
it wasn't good. Sebastian doing the full Court Press this week.
He got an US Weekly cover story where he's making
a stupid face. Why why do you have to make
a stupid face? You're nice looking man. Just smile. You
don't have to make a stupid face. Sebastian says, at
the end of the day, I just want to make
people laugh. He stays away from current events and politics
because I've always thought whatever my father's doing is a
(03:53):
hell of a lot funnier than what the president is doing.
You're getting in over the head with bad news and politics.
When people go out for a night of entertainment, they
want to escape. I'd rather talk about my experiences than
what's happening with the current administration. Just doesn't sound fun. Hey, look, man,
President Trump is just trying to make NBC twelve thirty
grade again. Is that not what we want? We had
Letterman and Conan and I don't know what Jimmy did
(04:14):
there for five minutes, But this seth myers. This is
not the Letterman show we grew up with. What are
you doing? Let's make NBC twelve thirty grade again? I
think the President's doing a great job on this issue.
Sebastian tells us I just wanted to do stand up
for a living. That was the goal. I never expected
to be doing these big shows. I concentrated on being
the best comedian I could possibly be. And everything after
that was kind of gravy interesting premise from Cracked dot com.
(04:37):
They floated out there that there's no number one comedian
right now. I think it's interesting. Is Dave Chappelle not
the number one comedian right now? Let me know what
you think. Daily Comedy News podcast group. By the way,
some of you are getting the questions wrong. Are There
are a couple questions there to make sure that you're
not a pornbot. Most people get the one right about
what do you seek, but you're getting the other ones wrong.
(04:58):
I'll give you a hint. Ever seen Bob Spurgers. No
one has. It's a hoax, okay. Crack points out there
are touring comics like Matt Rife and Nate Pergetzi of
a tight grip bond ticket sales and TikTok followers, but
haven't yet crossed over into TV and film. There are
the folks like stavros Helkis and Caleb Heron who balanced
comedy podcasts with continued pushes into Hollywood. Plenty of comedians
(05:20):
right now or finding success without being the number one anything.
Crack says that's not a bad thing, as we've seen.
Once a comedian becomes ultra wealthy, they tend to make
some pretty disappointing choices. Yeah, like a lot of them
went to the Riod Comedy Festival and played there. Fortunately,
YouTube videos can subvert the need to perform at the
Riod Comedy Festival. The Wall Street Journal asked Louis c
K about performing at the Riod Comedy Festival. Their question, though,
(05:45):
did you do the same material that the reporter had
recently saw? C K said, same set. I didn't really
change anything. I had a really profound experience there. The
night before in my show, I went to a local
comedy club called the Comedy Pod. This guy who runs
it said there was no stand up four years ago.
Now they do like twelve shows a week and it's
never not packed. They went from zero comedians to like
three hundred dedicating their lives to it. The journal was
(06:06):
curious what the material is. C K said. Most of
the comics were in Arabic and a few in English.
They were doing jokes about being married and how life
is hard, like any other comedians, but without the swagger.
There's a raspiness to American comedy. It's kind of defensive
and f everybody I've traded in that, but they didn't
have that. They were with their audience and the crowds
were excited. It felt like comedy in the eighties. Here.
I saw a guy at the club who reminded me
(06:28):
of a young Richard Pryor doing pantomime and stuff that
was really funny. When I did the Big eight thousand
Seed arena, I asked if he could do five minutes
in Arabic so the audience could see their own comedians.
But word came back from the powers above the festival,
absolutely not. He could work in English, but not in Arabic.
Apparently the interview just glossed over that, because the rest
of the quote is then I asked for some Arabic
pop as my walk on song, and they said absolutely not.
(06:50):
They picked back in Black by ACDC instead, and apparently
we glossed over that too. The journal's next printed question
is people will assume a big paycheck was the real
reason he went there. C K said, I can make
the same money anywhere I made over there, just might
take two nights instead of one and go into the
Saudi Arabian desert for one gig. Is it pain? In
the next way, to make money. I had to be
in Montreal the next night. I literally went from the
(07:12):
stage to a plane to Montreal to the stage. I'm
not going through that for a paycheck. Variety waxed Jim
Gaffigan's car pretty well, we'll pick it at this show
over the next few days. The top here politics, Jim.
Generally you're not a political comedian, but last year you
played Tim Walls on SNL, etcetera, etcetera. Jim said, I've
always liked the fact that at my shows a lesbian
couple could sit down to a Mormon family and enjoy
(07:33):
the stand up I'm doing. But I do find politics fascinating.
We live in an age where you can't really articulate
anything without being misconstrued. My best friend from childhood was
furious I did the Al Smith dinner. He said, I
can't believe you didn't destroy Trump, and I'm like, I
know it's not going to change anything. And the task
was to attack both sides in a setting where you're
surrounded by billionaires. The Tim Walls thing I was within
the environment of SNL, and there's a cultural interpretation of
(07:54):
every sketch. I intellectually know this. No one's going to
listen to me. At the same time, I want to
be able to look my children in the eyes and
say I didn't allow some horrible thing to happen. I
also feel comfortable that people know my views, but I
don't know if me being an advocate helps. Like with
the Mamdani thing that ended up being very divisive. I
remember seeing Stave and all those guys supporting Mundanami, and
I'm like, I don't know if that's helping him. Maybe
I'm being naive. Varieady said, you have guys like Andrew
(08:16):
Schultz and Theo Vaughan interviewing politicians on their podcast. You say,
no one's listening to you, but maybe people are. Jim said,
people are coming to a show off a break from
some of this drama. That's not to say there aren't
great comedians to talk about social commentary. The spirit of
George Carlin is very important. I remember when Trump was
first elected. My opening act had some political jokes. During
twenty sixteen and seventeen, the audience would kind of look
at the ceiling. The jokes were well constructed and they
weren't on one side or the other, but it was
(08:37):
just too much. People are looking at a break from that.
They're not ignoring the serious issues, but they're going at
least I can go see Jim Gaffigan and hear him
complain about being a parent. That's not to say he
doesn't care about someone being tackled on the streets. It
just means maybe people want to break from that. And
now what's interesting is Jim said all that without promoting
a burbon. So that's something. Josh Johnson was on Trevor
Noah's podcast. Trevor said, when I look at you, this
(08:59):
is the perfect example, Like if you tell me if
I'm wrong, but I feel like this version of Josh Johnson,
like the person we know you as today, it wouldn't
exist the same if the Internet wasn't what it was now.
Josh said, I know exactly what you mean. And I
think about that a lot because I had found some
mainstream and like legacy media success, but not enough to
live the way that I'm living or make the choices
that I make. The pair talked about how the benchmarks
in the industry have changed. Josh said, the ways in
(09:19):
an industry could elevate a person along the way, add
a lot of that stuff, and then there was a
gap in between does he have his own shows, you're
writing a show, is he's selling shows? Is he a
touring headline comedian? And so there was a gap there.
The Internet closed that gap. The people close that gap.
(09:44):
Comedy stock Markets, Thank you, Bert Reynolds. Now, I feel
like Comedy stock Market can get kind of negative, and
that's not the spirit of the show. I'm here to
be positive. So you know, I'm not going to tell
you to sell your Sebastian Maniscalco because he makes stupid faces.
Don't do that. Let positive. This week, Let's buy just Johnson.
We just talked about him. A lot of good buzz
(10:04):
on him, a bright career ahead. Let's load up on him.
Let's buy Adam Sandler, the great dramatic actor. There's still
nothing but good buzz on this Jake Kelly movie. Let's
get in front of it and buy a little more Sandler.
And last week I told you to buy Keenan Thompson, right,
that was just a good vibes and then he announced
that sports thing with Kevin Hard I told you about
earlier in the week. So if you have bought some Thompson,
(10:26):
you made a couple hypothetical bucks on the comedy stock market.
Why don't we buy some more Keenan Thompson, and let's
buy some comedy stock in President Trump, he's had a
bit of a rough period with some of the things
in the news, but when it comes to comedy, he's
trying to make NBC twelve thirty great again. And I
think we need to support the president as we try
and get back to the good old days of Letterman
(10:48):
and Conan style comedy at twelve thirty and not what's
going on now. So those are the recommendations by Sandler,
by Josh, buy Keenan, by Trump. That's your comedy stock
market for this week. Stewart did a panel at the
ninety two y. He was talking about management at Paramount
Global and said, I don't know that you can feel
the other humans in the room. Former Viacom chief executive
(11:10):
Tom Freston agreed with John. Stewart said we're droughting in data.
You put up a show, and executives of all this
data saying you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that.
Stuart said to Fresden, you seem to have a connection
to the artist and artistry. The Silicon Valley ethos is
more steeped inefficiency. They walk in and go how many
people work here? Eight thousand? Good make it too. It's
not really tied to the value. Freston said. They didn't
come to their jobs with a desire to do storytelling.
(11:32):
Freston said, it looks like Warner Brothers is going to
disappear and get gobbled up by paramount. Stewart cut in
and said, which is a fantastic company. I can't speak
more highly of them. I think they should gobble up
all them and hand them directly to the president. Stuart
choked him. I being fired talk show host is a
very tenuous business right now. I don't know if there
was a tweet that went out from the FCC right now.
Freston said, data brings in a cast of different kinds
(11:53):
of characters to run the show, and the soulfulness that
we felt and enjoyed has melted away a little bit.
Last weekend during FU I was emailing back and forth
with Paul the listener, Hello, Paul, thank you for listening.
Paul was giving me the business a little going basically
paraphrasing here, Hey, bout the time you talk about skank Fest,
And I was very defensive, and I was like, look, man,
I've talked about skank Fest every year. And then I
(12:14):
took a screenshot of my phone where I have Lewis J.
Gomez's phone number. I'm like, I know this guy a
little bit. Not saying we're tight, but I know him.
But apparently I dropped a Louis Gomez at some point
last week and he reminded me it's Lewis j. Okay,
we got that straightened up. Michael Ian Black has a substack.
Michael wrote under the headline the a Hole who Said Yes.
(12:36):
Mister Black apparently really enjoyed skank Fest. He wrote, I
find myself being skanky. I'd never heard of the festival
before being invited to participate, and I was initially a
little concerned about affiliating myself with skankingess, but fit I
know how to get gross. I think my response to
the initial email was something like I'd be an a
hole to say no, and so here I am the
a hole who said yes. Michae Lean Black writes from
(12:59):
a comedian's one of the lovely things about comedy festivals
is that many comics, such as myself don't get much
of an opportunity to hang out with other comedians. So
when these things pop up, I like to go for
no other reason to see folks haven't hung out with
in a while. Last night, for example, I got to
catch up with fellow Kid in the Hall Scott Thompson.
Michael writes, Yes, I'm joking when I say fellow kid
in the Hall. I make the joke because of some
(13:20):
of you know the project for which I most often
recognize as for being a member of the Kids in
the Hall, a show I was never on. I also
got to catch up with a great Doug Stanhope, so
I had a load of Rich Voss and Bonnie MacFarlane.
I met Shane Gillis, who's much taller than that I
would have thought. I always thought he had some strong
five nine energies, so I was surprised to see him
clocking in around six to three. Black Rights with a
(13:40):
name like skang Fest, the vibe is unsurprisingly somewhere between
a comedy club midnight show and an insane clown posse concert.
It's giving you ahead, Michael Ian Black Rights. There are
so few shows he get off the stage and feel
like you did what you envisioned in your head years ago.
I remember Chris Rock was talking about this. He said
that a comic might have two shows a year which
they felt like they nailed it two. Chris is a
much better comic than Olliver be so for me that
(14:02):
number is more like one, maybe one half. Sounds like
it was a good time at the skang Fest. Paul.
Thank you for listening normal episodes all weekend. Meet you
back here in the morning.
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