Laurie Kilmartin: Tough Crowd To Kimmel, And Why Stand-Up Keeps Us Sane

This week I got to hang out with veteran late-night writer Laurie Kilmartin (Jimmy Kimmel Live, Conan, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn), an old friend of mine from many stand-up rooms back in New York. We talk about joke writing, the evolution of a comic’s perspective over time (and why it's great to start releasing specials the day you start), and why a lot of stand-ups now include way too many words in their setups. Laurie talks about what it’s really like inside the Conan and Kimmel writers' rooms, the pressure of writing dozens of monologue jokes a day, and why stand-up is still the ultimate creative control valve for a TV writer.