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Alright, let's get on with the show then. Waiting down upon the underworld to smash gang men, come to the friend of the unfortunate enemy of criminal. In mysterious, all powerful characters are programmed to the police, but a true state of law. It's very well to be able to exchange.
I'm Sal. And I'm Joel and you know, I'm back after a week absence there, you know, Rob knocked me on the back of my head, tied me up in a closet, you know, last week. And took my spot, so we had to have an Agni-Kai, we had to have a Fire Duel this week. I knew Sal would like Agni-Kai and that's why I had to go.
Well, we had to pull out some Avatar references and no, not the blue cats. I was about to say, you know, those are outlawed. But they are in the new world order. But yeah, if you haven't checked out our previous episode, Joel was unfortunately unable to join us just because, and it was just legitimately Rob was like, Hey, you guys want to do an elsewhere exchange?
And I'm like, you know I have a show? That's got to be a good feeling to be like, man, this L-World's exchange, it's catching fire, man. Fire with a dynamite name like that that anyone can say rolls off a tongue and it's on the breakfast tables every American household, or at least in Toronto. It's getting a bump, man.
It's getting like the cold bear. Bunk, you got the Rob bump. The Rob bump, yeah. So today's topic is going to be comedians and no, I did not misspeak.
We are a comic book and pop culture related channel. We're both from that Walk of Life. The thing about it is I find that comedians and I think that Joel would agree have informed a lot of our presence here and they're translatable to a lot of the things that we do. I mean, it's self-made, go getting instant feedback, celomac that put themselves out there every day in hopes of the gratification they never got at home.
Yeah, yeah, you know, making videos on the internet and stand up comedy probably do have more in common than we think they would because again, like you said, it's, you know, personality driven. It's putting yourself out there every day and you're trying to get better and trying to write better material and trying to say something that's true that speaks to the world. You're trying to get your truth to reach everyone else. Exactly.
And the fact is how many people have been inspired by or been blown away by or have been motivated by. A comedian or two. I would say everyone, everyone, even if they don't think they are. Exactly.
Because maybe there's a friend or a person who's really just clever and interesting at work. Guess what? They're apin material from a really, really clever person. It works really, really hard on some material that you can then apply to your world perspective.
And I'm glad you mentioned that too, apin material. We all ate material every day, even if we don't know it. And the best bits, like the best comedy bits, become part of the fabric of pop culture, I think, and just become the things that we quote back and forth to each other endlessly. I mean, that's basically what we do as fans of anything, especially comics, cartoons, movies.
We take these cultural touchstones and then we get combined. We get merged by them. I just made an avatar reference at the beginning of this because we got it. There's a few people I'm sure that we're like, I know what he's talking about.
So you see, and because of that, I feel a lot closer to you, the audience out there. Don't I see more relatable? It's like, man, Joel is my kind of guy. He's my evil.
He uses Avatar, the last Airbender references interchangeably with regular cultural touchstones. He talks the way we all think. So we both have compiled lists unbeknownst to each other. That's wonderful.
We'll just go down the list with each tossout, a name, an influencer, or a comedian, and espouse them for a little while. But also, if there's any crossover, we'll just use that. I'll just delete them from my list and we'll go from there. That's what I basically done.
What I think is awesome about this too is that obviously when you put the topic and everything out on Twitter, and the comic population got a chance to chime in, one guy had it so perfect and I'm almost like, damn you for having it so perfect. Because you mentioned a bunch of names where it's like, take a drink every time they mention these three. I'm like, damn it, how did you know the top three on my list? Exactly.
I was literally, I saw that I just went, you'll be dead. Or you'll die. You'll die if you take a drink every time we mention one of these names. That's right.
So I'm going to try to avoid those three names just because they're probably in my top three as well. I make a hierarchy. I actually broke them into sections of the type of comedian I think they are. So we'll go with a couple of their just solo names.
I don't know if Dane Cook was on your list. No. But I thought we should talk about him because while he is totally irrelevant today, our audience might not even know who he really is. He got huge and then got irrelevant really quick.
That's the thing is that he is irrelevant now. In 2015, people could legitimately be like, who the hell is Dane Cook? Is he that guy they mentioned in that Brorake sketch? Yes.
But in 2005, he was, I would argue as big as Carlin at that time. He was the biggest fucking thing he had caught on to the internet boom. He was the first comedian who was like, do me a full me on social media, Instagram, fine. But whatever was big in 2005, he was that guy.
And I would say Dane Cook was less a comedic style and more of just a series of movements. He could break down his entire thing in his series of movements because he never stopped moving. He never stopped moving. I mean, for me, I'm sure people have called this coin this term before, but I call it frat house comedy.
Yes, that's perfect. Because he's the kind of guy who is more of a bro. You affected a bro voice for him. Yes.
Which is how it goes in the month. I'm sure he was not necessarily the kind of bro that he presented himself as on stage. Oh, I'm sure he wasn't. But he definitely affected that persona of this guy.
He put himself out there as like the every man. He's like, I'm the guy who I'm the funny friend in every group. Yes. He would often get cast as the funny friend in movies.
Exactly. The fact that he was in movies was like, oh my god, because he was, I always expected the movies to be as funny as he seemed to be. And they never lived up. And it's kind of like going back and listening to Dan Cook comedy today because it's like, oh, this is, this is not nearly as funny.
What a moment in time. He was also like, not really a bit comedian, not really a joke comedian. He belonged to kind of that like storyteller type of comedian. It's the sort of humor that would actually probably play great in Let's Plays.
If Dan Cook didn't have a Let's Play channel, he should probably Star Walk. That's a really good idea. If like you could legitimately see like Twitch.tv slash Dane and he just plays Call of Duty and riffs. Yeah, dude.
Fucking amazing. I would watch the shit out of that. Dayman, have my people call your people. Let's make this that by my people.
I mean, just me. Just me and sometimes the dog is by the phone. You can talk to him. Yeah.
He is definitely one of those storytelling comedians where they, that's kind of one of my favorite kind of comedians. It's a third style of comedy to do. Not everyone can be a storytelling. No.
And I think that some people are actually storytellers, even when they're not comedians, but they still wound up becoming them and I'll choose this comedian as well because they're not a comedian. But I think that they still fall under a similar category to Dan Cook where it's, here's a person who out of nowhere just shows up and does this thing and everybody responds to it. And then eventually that time is kind of over and it's Kevin Smith. Yeah.
Kevin Smith is a film director and an artist in his own rights podcaster and a writer and also performance artist. And that's, that's the Kevin Smith I want to talk about for the next minute or so. And it's just the fact that like the dude turned his Q&A college visits into a stand up comedy. Into one man shows, I would say Kevin Smith goes past the point of you know, just a Q&A guy, just like a professor lecture dude.
Like I would say like those three, you know, evening with Kevin Smith, even harder, whatever the third one was called. Yeah, exactly. Those are like Kevin Smith, one man shows it. In many cases he's telling you know stories from his life and you know, you feel you get a better understanding of the man watching it.
I mean, if you listen to his podcast, he gives you, I mean like he, all of his, when you listen to this podcast, you find out his whole life is those movies. Like you watch the movies and all the characters are, are avatars for people in his life. And so when he ran out of life, he ran out of movies. And the podcast is the same thing.
Like he's just telling stories that are either like cripplingly embarrassing or you know, frustratingly, you know, mundane. And it's because he's like, this is worth scraping the bottom of the barrel. Yeah, scraping the bottom of the barrel. That's a good way to look at it.
But he, but his, but his stand up, if you could call it that is something else because you wouldn't have expected it. He would told me in like, 99 or 2005, even that like, no, 2005 run, that's when he was starting to do it, that he would kind of be considered a stand up meeting. I'd be like, I'd be like, I'd be like, I'm sure most stand up meetings would also argue. No, that's not what that is.
Oh, I'm sure they would get right offended if you said that Kevin Smith was a stand up. You know what, like if you stand up and share comedy, guess what? That's who you are. I suppose.
And he's, but he's one of those storytelling comedians where if there are, there are callbacks to previous jokes, there are themes and it's all, but it's all seemingly behind a rock. Yeah. But it's always, it always seemingly is like a stream of consciousness where you think that he's not really thinking about where he's going and where he's been, but you see that it's been carefully calculated. Yeah, that's the thing.
He does a good job of making it look seamless, but you know it can't possibly be seamless. Right. I mean, and the dudes are writer and in fact, every comedian on my list is a writer in some capacity. So I think he definitely qualifies as one of my favorite comedians just because whenever he comes up, he there's always something that I identify with that I share and then I find funny.
I'll certainly say I enjoyed that version of Kevin Smith more than I've enjoyed like the last three or four Kevin Smith movies. So you know, that's some I can't, I mean, like the fact is I kind of insulated myself and we should make Kevin Smith a topic because I think that'd be a thing we could talk about. That might be a sad topic for some of us. Yeah, that's true.
But I isolate myself because I was like, I'm, you know what, Tusk is not for me. I'm never going to watch that. Who was Tusk for except for the people in the room when he originally pitched that? I guess.
So it's him and Moser. But yeah, similarly cop out. I'm like, I saw that. I'm like, I don't want to see that.
And you know what, apparently I'm right. You know, we tell a lot of silly crazy stories on our shows. I say shows multiple because we're on so many. I mean, no one wanted to give us millions of dollars to go make the crazy shit we set into a reality.
I mean, like, yeah, and we should, we could also do here's another topic with just about a month ago, Joel and I sat down just through topics and we're just picking off the list. But here's another one that I want to throw out there. Missed opportunities in creative endeavors. Oh, yeah.
Lots of stories of almost making it somewhere. And then it just not. And then here we are. So a bunch of del Toro on there, pretty much like every other project del Toro's ever worked on would be on there.
No del Toro unreliable. Like, I would not trust that man to help me move. It's like, oh, you know, buddy, I was going to be there to help you move. But I did not.
But you know, I got caught up in my house, you know, my other house that's just filled with collectibles because I have another house. No, you know what you did be like, oh, I thought I was going to help you move with the reality is I have other people, I have six other people that I'm doing the same day. And I can't move them all. So I have to pick one.
Like, how about you just fucking make a schedule there, Del Toro? Ah, you know, I'd love to. But I filled this book with all my ideas and then I leave it in the cab. I like the more we talk about del Toro, the more he sounds like an angry French kid.
I cannot. I cannot. I cannot. How about an Apple team?
And boy three at some point. Okay. So all right. Really back to stand.
Let's bring it in. So who's on your list? What else we got? Well, you know, obviously you said how you worked out your list, how you did it by styling everything.
I started the list the only way you could and just work down generation generationally from there. The top of my list, you know, kind of the progenitor, I would say of modern stand out comedy, the way we have it, arguably the greatest guy who ever did it. I watched an amazing PBS documentary about him on Netflix this week. And that is that's Richard Pryor.
Yes. I went through a phase in my earlier years, like 12, 13, where I would see Richard Pryor material and avoid it because I was like, old things are not relevant to me. Like comedy, there's nothing scaler than that. Boy, was I wrong?
And boy, is he the progenitor of like, of modern comedy? He basically invented what it meant to be a rock star comedian. And this was at the time when you know rock stars and comedians were closer than you would think because back in the days before the YouTube and the Netflix kids, when you were a comedian, you put out comedy albums and comedy CDs. And that's how you heard your favorite comedians.
True. It's true. You had a record before that. And I know a couple of comedy records.
I heard Richard Pryor on a VHS, but I knew people who had Richard Pryor albums the way you'd buy an album by the who and damn, he exemplified the rock star comedian. And it's funny too, because he started from such humble beginnings. And he was there for all the major shifts in technology. Like we said, going from albums to CDs to VHS, I wish I could remember the name of it, but it's out there now.
I think they released it after his death. It was basically footage of his first big performance that he was doing. And he's really, really young in that. And he's doing it in like a restaurant.
And you know, what's the restaurant because behind him is the menu, where it's like, you know, steak, five dollars, you know, dessert rice pudding. And like the cameras are on him and he seems really fricking uncomfortable that the cameras are on him and he keeps looking at me. He's like, why are you looking at me? Right.
Right. Exactly. Why are you filming me when I'm trying to work and be funny? And I'm like, man, this is amazing.
Yeah. It's fascinating the concept of the comedian because they're deeply personal, but they're also typically really, really anti social people. I know, right? Because they share so much of themselves, but they're also so like insulated, which is not unlike running into like some of your favorite YouTubers.
I know that I've done that before. I've been doing a YouTuber I'm like, like hell of your 70s. I go, thanks a lot. I'm like, you're a bombastic son of a bitch on the internet.
But like once I meet you, you are super quiet, super isolated. It's funny. I know of that stereotype. And that's why when I meet people, I try very hard to meet their expectations and be the Joel they see on stuff.
Right. Yeah. Because I don't want to totally break their hearts and just be like, yeah, you know, I'm just just here at the con looking to complete my fraction Iron Man. The one of those trades are really hard to find, you know, I don't know if you've seen anything.
Just let me know. We did the meet and greet at Baltimore Comic Con, Con is very similar to that people were like, so let's you and I'm like, yes, hello, like, can I do a picture again? Like you don't ever have to ask you. We could do that until the sum comes up.
I'm totally down. You can take a picture, but it'll cost you five bucks. That's right. Those are really Hudson.
No, they're already Hudson. Oh, or any one's to me for a photo. Man, I love so many of those celebrities, but in a con setting, I'm just like, Oh, I don't $60 love you. Yeah, you actually, you're learning a lot about yourself and your and your desires.
You're fandom. Yeah. Just really quick. I Mark Hamill was at New York on a couple years ago.
He had a line of maybe 50 people, but he wanted $100 for signature. I never paid for that. I never would have thought I'd live in a world where I would, and I had $100, and I still didn't get it. You know what the trick is?
The trick that I found this out at Montreal Comic Con, you wait around until like the end of the day until they're leaving and then you catch them on the way out and yeah, strike up a conversation with them. I did that with Spike Spiegel at Zephyrm Rebel. Oh, nice. I don't know his name.
Oh, God. Oh, God. This is guy. I know what he's one of my favorite voice actors.
How do I not? Steve Blum. Thank you. I chatted up with Steve Blum.
They're now also a help too that my boss and co-host from the Comic Cast Army and his wife was next to me. Oh, that knows. And she has a beautiful woman dressed in a Captain Marvel cosplay, so I'm sure he was only looking at her the whole time. I know exactly.
But that's fine. That's okay. I talked to Zephyrm and sounds like, dude, Rebel's is really awesome. You're really great in all the anime's and stuff.
He's like, yeah. Yeah. I'm also the guy from Toonami. That's right.
He's also that. And he came back for that. How cool is that? Well, I guess it's a good number one.
It's a paycheck number two. How many free lines he probably after a chord. Like, that's half an hour in the booth. When you're a professional voice actor.
Yeah, that's true. But yeah, I couldn't know. I didn't spend $100 and every so often I think I should have probably spent $100. Yeah, really.
Because especially when you'll never see him again. Well, Malcolm McDowell has showed up to the last two fan expos. I've missed McDowell both times and both times. I'm like, man, should really have gotten in there with McDowell.
He is not getting any younger. Exactly. I should really get in there. Else one day I'm super going to kick myself.
Yeah. Time is the fire which will burn. McDowell was so god. Even when McDowell is in crap and he has been in a lot of crap over the years.
He's he's wonderful in crap. He's so great. He's especially in crap. And like, you will elevate crap at the same time too.
You're just like, Oh, McDowell's the bill. McDowell's in this spoiler. He's probably going to be the villain. Hey, look, he was the villain.
Oh, as it turns out, yeah. McDowell and Tim Currier, the two people where if you see them voicing a character and they seem normal, like, no, you're not normally going to be revealed to be the villain. Because why would you cast these two if they were going to be the villain? It's a red herring.
It's like having a it's like when you have a special actor on episode Colombo, like, Oh, I guess you're going to be the murderer. Leonard Deemois, the murderer. It's always that way. Or even in Hot Fuzz when they just got like a bunch of amazing British actors.
Yes. And it's like, no, this guy can't just be a farmer. This guy just can't be, you know, he's my doctor. Nope, Tim Dalton is spectacular.
Yeah, I watched that movie last night again. It's wonderful. I just don't know if we smashed your head open. All sorts of wonderful things are coming tumbling out like amazing actor that Tim Dalton endeared me from Hot Fuzz so much.
He's now one of my favorite pawns. Yo, just so good. Just, you know, it came back to it. Yeah.
So, all right. Yes, it's Stan of comedy, Richard Pryor. What I really like about him is he's a, you know, real great personification of that. All great comedy comes from tragedy.
Dude grew up in a brothel for crying out loud. Yeah. Dude lived a horribly tragic life. It set himself on fire when he was doing drugs and when that would normally kill a person's career.
He turned that to one of his funniest bits. Right. Yeah. If you haven't already, by the way, mostly communities we're talking about, all of them are on YouTube.
All their bits are available. You could totally just get them. Another one that I want to talk about really quick is Jerry Seinfeld. Oh, yes, of course.
Now Seinfeld, funniest show on television still after all these years. He's one of the funniest shows on TV. His comedy is interesting. Yes, it is.
Because you think it's simple and dumb, but then you think about how much effort he puts in, how much respect he has to the craft to get himself into that headspace to say the sort of stuff that he says and to think about it the way he does. And it's amazing. It elevates the material to a point where you think like, I was a throwaway joke, you take comedy for granted when you don't think about the effort that goes into it. It's the best comedy is stuff that you know at first glance he wouldn't think about that.
That's right. That's right. You just take it for granted because it's a truth because it's a universally accepted thing. Exactly.
Jerry Seinfeld's show on the internet called Comedians in Coffee is one of my favorite online-only shows. So simple. You can also watch it on crackle if you crackle on your playstation like me. It's amazing.
It's a great simple premise. Jerry Seinfeld gets given a beautiful car every episode and he pulls up and gets a comedian that either he really, really respects or really, really doesn't. And it's amazing to watch either way and it's great to see because I've seen him talk to Louis C.K. He just has this unbelievable fascination with the man and his comedy and then I see him get in the car with Stephen Colbert and he doesn't get it.
Like he'll talk to Colbert and be like, I don't understand you at all. But he's also so rich and so insular from the rest of the world. He don't give a fuck. He got that Seinfeld money.
He does. He's got the money. But he also, he is aware that he has that kind of money. I have a family friend who is incredibly rich and has a very, very similar attitude.
Like just that whole like, yeah, I mean, hey, you know, your shirt's on top. Like, oh, you know, this is a formal setting. You might not have pointed that out. I fuck you.
I got a billion dollars. It's like, it's like, you know, with Seinfeld, you know, but being so rich, people always say, you know, how can we never get anything after Seinfeld? You know, how can we never do it? How can we never do it anymore?
So you don't have to when you're old talking. Everything he did was go back to stand up and beat and try comedy because I'm not trying to continue to be a comedian because he's like, the only thing I ever gave a shit about was this and now I have the money to give it to give it about only one thing. Here it is. He loves two things.
He loves comedy and Superman and he infuses a lot of his bits and a lot of the Seinfeld show was Superman. His Superman, like, you know, statuille is in the background of every episode of that show. That's actually was hard to get and very expensive because of that show. I saw it for sale at the Baltimore Comic and I almost bought it.
So many bits he does too, where he's like, he talks about marriage and referring to the ring, like a green lantern ring where it's like, oh, he just can't get that off, matter how hard to try. Right. But yeah, the Bizarro world, a whole episode based around the Bizarro world, and even just bringing that to people who don't read comics and being like, well, yeah, you know, Bizarro is the opposite of Superman from the Bizarro world. The opposite of the black is white.
If you really want to, like, connect some dots here, back issues is basically the conversation that Elaine and George and Jerry have about the Bizarro world and Green Lantern. Wouldn't it be bad by instead of goodbye? Black. Does he breathe underwater?
These are the Ethan questions that I'm like, holy crap, like that's just our show. How amazing. And obviously there's like inside fans, like we are, we would never think to ask that because it all just makes sense. But it's like, yeah, for a saying rational person, that is a good question.
Yeah, I love Elaine's response, when he says she's like, which one's Green Lantern again? Green suit, power ring, not care for jewelry on men. That's amazing. Sharp amazing writer and an incredible comedian.
All right, what's one from your list? Well, you know, I will dovetail off Jerry Seinfeld because this guy was actually on Seinfeld numerous times and is one of the best friends of Jerry Seinfeld. Domarara. Oh, Domarara.
I really, really like either appearance on Seinfeld and be surprised by their comedy because I never really searched them out. I would occasionally come up with it through my epic searches of comedy. I'm a big fan of just for laughs. Obviously just for laughs is the big comedy festival here in Montreal.
So they're always replaying it. And everything in Domarara, you know, just constant fixture of the of the festival. He's there all the time. He's one of the big headliners of the nasty show is the thing because Domarara really filthy comedian, just, you know, like really, really good stuff.
And again, he's good friends with Seinfeld, but their comedies are not about diversion. Yeah, world's apart. And you know, again, Seinfeld works very clean is the thing. All of his stuff is like squeaky clean stuff you could watch with your grandmother.
Domarara, no. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have much else to say.
But yeah, Domarara really funny guy always wanted to see him in person there. Like you talk about co-opting bits. I co-opted his bit in talking about Seinfeld and why he hasn't done anything. Why?
Because he has a billion dollars. That's why he'll go back to doing stuff after he spent a billion dollars is what he'll do. I would never. Yeah.
Another one that I want to talk about for a minute is Mitch Hedberg. Oh, he was on my list. He was on my list too. Mitch Hedberg is if you've never heard of him, look him up.
You find all of his stuff on YouTube. He was a heroin addict. Yeah. Also a comedian.
Yes. And he would. Although he swore he never did drugs on stage is the funny thing. There's one there's one there's one special that I've seen of Mitch's and it's unwatchable because he's too high.
He's too messed up. Yeah. And it's really sad. Like it really made it really broke my heart to see it.
I was like, okay, I'm done. I'm sorry, Mitch. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Other instance of you know, sometimes the brightest comedians cast the dark eyeshadows and everything and there was a dude who clearly had a lot of issues even though he had, again, he was a very joke comedian. Like he actually has he had jokes.
Yeah. He had it really. He was funny, he had bits. He had jokes.
And he was one of those comedians who just like, he didn't have a, he said which is joke, joke joke, joke, joke. He was just a joke machine. Some nights I lay dead or sometime I'd lay in my twing bed and wonder where my brother was. But Rice is great for if you're hungry, if you want 2,000 of something.
I was in a death metal band. Then we had to sell our amps, so we became a death metal a Pellegroup. People either loved us or they hated us or they thought we were okay. He's amazing.
When he works, he works. He's on fire. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us. He died in my home state in a hotel, which depressed the crap out of me because I'm like, right, Jersey claimed another price.
So many great comedians to died way too young. And the Mitch Hedberg one is even sadder, which again, it'll actually help me dovetail to get another comedian I have on my list because he actually does a bit about Stanhobes or about a Hedberg death. That's Doug Stanhob. Right.
Who's another just, you know, fierce brutal comedian in the way he does stuff like, Oh my God. Like one of his specials, if you see none of his specials, you should see the one where he's in New York. He's smoking and drinking on stage and he makes a point about it. Say, Oh, no, I'm allowed to do it because it's part of the arts.
I'm it's okay. You don't like it. Maybe next time get out and vote people. Yeah.
And he does a whole bit, not that step. But in another one where he talks about Mitch and says, you know, I loved Mitch, Mitch was a great friend of mine. And I hate what his parents did. His parents created a Mitch Hedberg charity golf tournament in his honor and said that's a real shame for anyone who knew Mitch why because Mitch hated golf and he loved drugs.
Yeah. You probably love them right up until the end. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, and that's just Stan Hope's bits in a nutshell. He's one of the most darkest, you know, completely brutal.
Like I was going to say mean spirit, but he's always funny type comedians. Like he's a guy who will never attain the success of a Lewis CK or anyone else because he's just way too wrong. Yeah, it's too real. It's funny.
We've covered a spectrum of comedians and we haven't really talked about the tones and themes that we have in a way. I go through phases where there are certain themes or tones that I really, really gravitate towards. But I always have a soft spot for the angry comedian, someone who's just so sick of everything. And we're getting less and less of those.
We are. It must mean that we're doing okay financially as a country or as a world again, because that's always the way it goes where it's like, you know, you get the angry people, you know, and then it goes up and down. Exactly. But I've always been gravitated towards the angry comedians hard to imagine.
But like, I always love the comedian who's just soaked that up with everything that he's just like here's here it is. The Sam Kinnesons of the world. Lewis blacks, like the people who are just so full of anger that they need to just vomit their vitriol on stage. And and all the better when you know that they believe it because there's some people like Lewis Black, Lewis Black's a great comedian who I think has time his time passed long ago.
I have three different specials. They're all full of the same exact jokes. Red, white and black. I'm driving all the other names.
And I'm like, and I'm like, and I'm like, this sucks because he's really funny and these jokes are all great, but you're doing them again and again. He transitioned really well, Lewis Black. You know what he's doing now? I assume voice work.
Well, voice work, obviously, he killed it inside out this year as anger, which yes, perfect casting genius. But no, he's actually directing and helping manage other comedians live specials and everything. That's really cool. I watched one just recently.
Oh, God, I wish I could remember her name. She's a lady comedian. She's really hilarious. She's done just for last a bunch of times.
And like the first five minutes of that special is just them, you know, going out, eating lunch, looking at the city and then he directs and manages her special. I'm like, good for you guys. That's really cool. It's just like help his friends put on a good special.
And I'm like, yeah, if you're not a comedian doing comedy, still knowing those ins and outs would be a good career. It's true. But while I do appreciate and enjoy the anger, I went through my whole college was still the anger comedians nowadays. I kind of like a good sprinkling of light or of of refreshing positivity.
That's always nice. And there's one comedian that I that I've only really recently discovered. And he's he had a show that was just canceled about a year ago, P homes. Oh, yeah, that's right.
I've heard of him. He has a he had a show that came on right after Conan's. He's also the guy who does the Batman videos on that's all right. That's right.
And he's one of those few comedians that we will get into. Like I have at least two more who are also huge nerds, which is also we've really seen an explosion of nerd comedians over the last little while and that makes me happy. I think it has something to do with the success of the movies and the tv shows that people can be more out about their nerdy than they ever have been before. But you know, it's funny, I don't even care about that.
Like I am I'm an aerodynamic geek. I like geek oriented humor. I've seen comedians do geek sets. And it feels like Big Bang Theory where it's like, yeah, yeah, set up joke, insert stupid Joe reference and then applause a perfect example of this again.
I keep showering love and respect on the just for last comedy festival here in Montreal. But they actually had a nerd show. They had like a nerd geek show alongside the nasty show in the music, Canadian show and everything. And it was hosted by some of the guys from the Big Bang Theory.
And it was a lot of stuff like that. And it was kind of lame. Yeah, that's not that's not comedy. But like, not being said, they had some good guys in that they had Kamal Najani in there and they had a few people who are genuinely funny and genuinely do this stuff all the time.
Nice. They had the people with the credit and the people who didn't have the credit. Yeah. Because the fact is for me, like Pete Holmes has a style that is he will make references that you can tell are incredibly nerdy or that will highlight will illustrate a point he's trying to make that only reaches 8% of his audience because that's us.
And he'll make reference to like, you know, you'll and you just look like Gollum in the in the case. And that's a two generic experience. But I'm not a stand-up comedian. So I can't just come up with the funny.
Yes, Chad Garfunkel notes, wood count as comedians. They're song comedians, but they are still very much comedians. And I like their stuff very much. But it's the world from which we come as nerds, as geeks, as fans of this thing that unite us.
We might all have, you know, we might all like Spider-Man, but we're not all of a Spider-Man, but a small subset of us might. But even if you like Green Lantern more, we all kind of came from very similar stock lead us into those kinds of people. Love a fantasy, love of morality, tales, wearing good winds out. And that's where Pete Holmes's foundation comes from.
And that's where I really like find respect for it, where he's just like, you know, it's really fun sitting and not going to a party. My first part of the day is when I had plans and then someone breaks them and I think, oh my god, now I don't go anywhere. But it's that line where it's like this. It's a little bit self-effacing, but it's also really positive.
And so I really dig that guy and I've really been enjoying his model as lately. So he came to mind. You know, the chat brought it up in the right to that, you know, we're probably going to be talking a lot of the older communities. I guess to show some love for a new guy in the same way, Sal did.
I don't know if he feels the same way about this guy as I do, but Bo Burnham, not only a song comedian, but a song comedian who came from the internet and came from YouTube. I don't even consider him a comedian. Really? What do you consider him?
I consider Bo Burnham like a modern internet philosopher and a brilliant performer. Oh, very much. Like that song, he sings God is dead. I'm like, holy shit.
God is, I'm an artist is one of the one of the most penetrating Lee and Cyclesongs. I heard. No, no, no. Art is dead.
It says art is dead. Yeah. I could feed a family of four for 40 fucking four at night. Well, Carlin rolls in his grave.
He, he, the last set, he was special. He did the one that was exclusive. I don't remember what the hell was called to the chat. Help me out.
But like it was on Netflix and YouTube. That was so deep. And I hate saying it. It was deep.
It was. But no, it especially seems weird saying deep about this like blonde haired pretty boy in his twenties, which I'm sure turned a lot of people off right away who wouldn't even listen to him. And I'm sure it's why you know, he got such the big team girl audience that he did. But then when you actually sit down and listen to him, like Jesus Christ, this dude is friggin dark and philosophical.
Yeah. Yeah. Words, words, words. The whole, the whole performance is so brilliantly choreographed and so perfectly executed with such pinpoint precision that when it finally culminates to his finale, like I, like I wept.
It was so like just powerful. And I'm like, wow, this fucking kid destroyed it. I know right. I know.
And gets it on a level that few do. And so like I appreciate his his his approach. But I don't think that what he does is the same thing comedy is I mean, although at the same time, comedy is taking the world and presenting it to people through the lens of the comedian and hopefully you'll enjoy your laugh. I don't laugh at Bo Burnham.
I just think, you know, I would consider his stuff very much in the same way as like, oh, God, friggin, I can remember his name now. Hangover guy, piano, comedian, Zach Alphinakis, because it's the sort of like, you know, do a joke, play a song on the piano, do a joke, play a song on the piano, talk to the crowd a little bit. Yes. But yeah, we could talk about Bo Burnham forever.
So let's move on. But let me toss out another guy who's young and new and I really take a stuff, John Mulaney, one of the whitest people on the planet. He is like probably 25, he wears a suit and he just has a very, very dry performance. And he gave us a like one of his sets, he gives an example of performing for somebody like West for a party in West Virginia.
And he's like, there was no stage, it was just dirt. And I, he wears the suit for part of his act, or for his act. He gets onto the dirt. And he's like, I was two minutes into my set and then someone just puts their hand at his, oh, yes, we have a question.
I said, sir, I believe we would all prefer silence to the sound of your voice. And he was like, it was just so eloquent. You could really like, I was just, I thanked him for it and then left. But but he's really funny and he's an up and comer.
I think he's, I mean, he's up and comer. Like my friend James Parkinson is an up and comer because he's never been on any TV show. And yet he's been a comedian in New York for the last 10 years. How long have you been up and comer?
John Mulaney has been on The Tonight Show twice. That's not an up and comer. That said, if you've never seen John Mulaney and you come from a white suburban household, you'll probably find him a layer. You know, I like you mentioned The Tonight Show to you know, again, in the days before the internet and millions of channels and millions of sitcoms, that was the goal you get on The Tonight Show.
You get people to like you maybe you'll land a sitcom deal or an HBO deal. That was the Carson deal that was you go on Carson and you will get and you and you'll probably, you know, your career will blossom Conan tries to do that. And I think it's I think it's adorable because the dude wants to have the Carson era back and tried really hard to infuse class into the late night format and failed miserably because Jimmy Kibil and Jimmy Fallon are in charge of it now are doing pure lowest common denominator, which takes no problem if you like that not passing judgment just saying well it's fucking trash and like it's the lowest of hanging fruit like Jimmy Fallon can't just have a just can't put the say by the bell class in there. He has to be a member of the class and he has to make the most obvious jokes like the lowest hanging fruit ever.
He needs to reunite the Good Burger cast but make him the other guy in the Good Burger sketch. Even though Keenan Thompson was there and showed up and even though Keenan Thompson is a senior member of Saturday Night Live. Like skill on the show after all these years. Exactly it's nuts.
But Conan will also like mix it up because he loves music. There's always a musical guest which for me socks me can talk about that in our late night show but he also will mix that up with comedians and while it won't propel their careers because he has a late night show at 11 p.m on TV fucking s and who watches that? I do but that's me. Do you watch it when it airs or do you watch it later on a series of strips?
But I found that the show got too formulaic and I stopped watching it all together. See that's the thing like I like at midnight I will occasionally watch the daily show and the other stuff. I don't actually watch it when it airs anymore because I'm a busy man making youtube videos and podcasts like these. I actually I was just the remarking of the day.
I thought I would just work DVR shield and just watch it from there but every time I think like oh I should probably DVR shield it's on and I'm like oh well I'll just remind him. You know I cut the cable cord like a few months back now is the thing and I honestly haven't looked back and then again I also haven't taken important shows to review as they are like some of the other guys on my channel do is the thing but I'm just like no I'm comfortable watching this the next day honestly. Yeah there's no need that's over. The only thing that he kind of bugs me about is when we're in game of thrones season and people are spoiling shit on twitter that's really the only thing.
Yeah that's not good. Yeah and even that even if they did so I'm like well fuck I'm gonna watch it anyway so. So what's another guy on your list? We got to hammer these out.
Well you know we were talking about the importance of HBO specials and everything. Here's a guy who probably I would say like the last great of the modern era the last great rock star comedian of the HBO special of you know that time in place and again it dovetails out of SNL nicely as well and that's Chris Rock. Chris Rock he's also on my list. He's the kind of comedian that I also put in the list of like storyteller because he does he doesn't do like just jokes he will do callbacks he will do references he will tell a story but it's all part of one but it all has great chapters that end with the cause of laughter.
Yeah his thesis is what it is. He has a very specific you know like not formula but he has a very specific movement to him also and you know what up and down and really kind of molds the crowd into what he's doing. He's a very good crowd worker. He's what I call a preaching comedian.
Very much so. He has a theme or a topic or a point that he wants to get across and then he does and he does it brilliantly and sightfully and hilariously. He attacks you with his truth that's what he does. He like from the second he steps on that stage he's just boom boom boom going after it and he drops the mic at the end of his thing.
That's his big you know like trademark from the world of town which I don't know if you pick that up from Def Jam or Def Jam Star that because yeah you drop the mic like a beat poet when you're done. Damn right. I love it. It's completely incredible.
I mean just so many of his bits are again classic part of pop culture now I know the bit from from a bigger blacker on co-op when he talks about gun control in America and says no but we don't need gun control but we need in America is some bullet control every bullet should cost five thousand dollars every bullet cost five thousand dollars and there would be no more innocent bystanders. People would think first people would be like man you know this guy must have done something you know fucked up because they put five thousand dollars worth of bullets in him right now. It's amazing. If you've ever seen there's an amazing conversation and that's a thing for me I love comedy I love watching them do their stand up.
I love watching interviews with comedians. I love watching them talk about their process and share what they love about their process so much. It's why I like watching anyone making anything. It's why we like but that speaks to the kind of people we are.
We like the commentaries. We like you know interviews. We like YouTube conversations. They like going behind the velvet curtain and see what they're talking about.
Exactly. I know more about it. We but if you've never seen it there's an amazing sit down with Jerry Seinfeld, Lucik, Chris Rock and someone else. What a panel.
And they're in an intimate room. They just talk for like two and a half hours and you're there and you're just like yes and it's spectacular because you're watching at one point Seinfeld is complimenting Lucik and he's talking about how he goes like you are you have a brilliant way like you tell these brilliant jokes and Lucik they're not jokes. This is who I am. Like these are the things that happen to me.
You think that I'm embellishing them for comedic effect but I'm not. And Seinfeld refuses to believe it and then takes one of the what of what Seinfeld thinks is a bit of CK's and then he and then he regurgitates it back at CK and and and and he's like you have just taken one of my stories and Seinfeld did it. He literally took a Lucik set and turned it into a Seinfeld set and with his cadence and with his like thought process and with his delivery and and Seinfeld's like I didn't mean to evolve your and he's like no no that was amazing to watch because we just got to watch your process and I got to hear my comedy through your filter and it's a totally wrong joke and it's spectacular. And from there I think we should probably talk about Lucik a little bit because he's probably today's George Carle.
Is it weird that I've kind of missed the boat on Lucik? I've tried to sit down and watch like one of his newer specials and I'm like I don't get this right now because I think I need the build up to this because I imagine the guy who I'm seeing now in the newest special I won't really get that guy if I don't watch the stuff that came before. I've watched his show and you know it's funny people always said about Seinfeld it's a show about nothing. No Louie is a show about nothing.
Louie's a show about nothing that makes you want to slit your wrist at the end of it. Yes yes it does. In the best way possible. I can't watch Louie because that's that's too much.
Like literally Louie's like no taking his kids to school that that's an episode right. He's right like it's brilliant but I think there is a build up for that. I think you need to be built up to Louie's okay and the reason for that is simple it's because it's something that few comedians will do and it's one of the reasons why I respect Man so much. He will have like a set.
He'll create like a special and then when it's out he throws it all away and then he opens the show with the last joke. Oh wow. His showstopper is now the intro to the next show. Oh wow that's cool.
He has to build on the strength of the last best joke and that is something that I can and that's something that when he was telling Seinfeld he's like why would you do that? And Louie is like because they paid to see this and if they're coming to see me they better see something new otherwise why would they come. That's true. That's how I feel but modern comedians don't they're like no I built this set.
I have 15 amazing minutes now. Why would I ever get rid of this? Yeah I've worked on this for 10 years and he's like fuck that. And some comedians I love they will do the same jokes over and over again.
Oh yeah and I love that. I think that's that's so I whether you even find him funny or not. You got to respect that process. Oh totally.
But I think that for like I think because of that you might need to go back and see his sets and see how they all build to like where he is now because it's not this is the unfortunate part for a lot of my favorite comedians is that for me their last album is not as good as the one before it. Yeah and I don't know what that is. I think maybe they're slowing down. They're softening or they're just their style changes.
It's not for me anymore. But for whatever reason comedy is subjective and you know it's you know eventually that audience is for somebody else. Yeah I mean totally I think another comedian who's an interesting case of you know being taken from us too soon but not because he died and that comedian is Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle is amazing.
I yeah I saw him do stand up in college not like a person. I'm not an underseller. I was a Louisan person but I've never seen Chappelle in person but I saw him perform like one of his routines in college and I'm like this guy's funny. Is he the guy from that fucking terrible movie half Bay?
He's the weed guy. Yeah and then I thought even from like is he the comedian and the nutty professor and I'm sure he would really appreciate being known as the Eddie Murphy ripoff in the nutty professor. I know right. Just just such a funny guy just such a talent with such an interesting way of looking at the world and examining race and you know really like cutting to the core of it and everything and that's and like I'm just talking about his stay up.
I mean you know you can talk about Chappelle's show and how funny that was. That show unified more people than like any than any like deliberate effort to unite people that I've ever seen. Two stellar seasons that still hold up in fact in preparation for this I went back and re-washed both seasons and the three special episodes that they put out without him after he left. Oh shit.
Oh if you've never seen the three. Oh it is eye-opening. You need to go see the three because it's Charlie Murphy and the other dudes who are hosting the show and they're like hey these are the three sketches we have left over before Dave Chappelle ran off to Africa. Oh shit.
And again they're really funny sketches but they're super eye-opening too because you could you can basically see the headspace he was in before he left. Right that's really cool. Because the first sketch is all about you know people treating him differently now that he made like $50 million for signing third season and like his bodyguard gets shot you know by tax people coming to collect and he's like no why do you have to do it Dave why do you have to make another season they're just gonna say it wasn't as good as last year but you know what the key is to keep in the show funny forever. No and then like a sketch like him taking revenge on like club owners who banned him and like all these other casting agents and people and I'm like oh you were kind of in a dark headspace weren't you there Dave I can see what you left.