Rose Matafeo is a comedian, writer and actor from New Zealand who began her comedy career at age 15. In 2018, her stand-up show Horndog won the top comedy prize at the Edinburgh Fringe, and she subsequently recorded Horndog in posterity for HBO Max in 2020. She has become a fixture on TV panel shows in the UK, and you may have seen her as a contestant on the popular program Taskmaster, or performing her stand-up on Conan. She also starred in a feature film, Baby Done. For her latest trick, she has co-created and co-written her own starring sitcom vehicle, Starstruck, in which she finds herself in a rom-com collision with a famous movie star. Starstruck almost got sidelined by the COVID pandemic, but its first season has aired on the BBC and HBO Max, with a second season (and more) already written! Matafeo spoke with me about quarantining in New Zealand for five months while wondering if her TV show would actually happen, the relatively young age of the New Zealand comedy scene, memories from Montreal’s Just For Laughs, and why comedians think of other people as civilians. So let’s get to it!

Rose Matafeo

Rory Scovel is a stand-up comedian, actor and writer who came out of the Washington, D.C., comedy scene, and has managed to incorporate the lessons of improvisation into his stand-up throughout his career, from comedy competitions to late-night TV sets to his latest effort, the comedy documentary, Live Without Fear, filmed by Scott Moran out now on YouTube. Scovel also currently co-stars in the Apple TV+ series, Physical, opposite Rose Byrne. His previous credits include creating and starring in the Comedy Central series, Robbie, a Netflix comedy special, as well as appearances in the film&nbsp;I Feel Pretty, and sitcoms such as ABC's&nbsp;Modern Family&nbsp;and NBC's&nbsp;Superstore. In March of 2018, Rory decided to find out what would happen if he fully improvised an hour of stand-up for six straight nights at the Relapse Theatre in Atlanta. The results of which can be seen in Live Without Fear. How does he do it? Scovel tells me, so let’s get to it!

Rory Scovel

Lance Reddick stars as Renzo, an egotistical human warrior who has liberated the planet Farzar from evil aliens — it’s all part of the new Netflix sci-fi animated comedy series, Farzar, created by Roger Black and Waco O’Guin, whose previous animated projects include Brickleberry and Paradise PD. Black and O’Guin have been making outrageous comedy since meeting in college at the University of Georgia, and I spoke with them about their journey from Yucko The Clown on Howard Stern to animation, and with Reddick about pivoting from prestige TV to prank comedy. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at  so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

Farzar with Lance Reddick, Roger Black and Waco O'Guin

Michelle Ortiz was born in Los Angeles but studied all over the world, including the Moscow Art Theatre School, and classical opera in Germany. A participant in both the ABC and CBS diversity showcases, Ortiz broke through first as a cast member on the reboot of MADtv for The CW — where she impersonated the likes of Kim Kardashian, Melania Trump, Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Lopez, and Dora the Explorer. Ortiz also has appeared on I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, Mom, Life in Pieces, Gentefied, and When Nature Calls with Helen Mirren. In 2022, Ortiz has a new chance to shine as Maggie in the Hulu comedy series, This Fool. Ortiz sat down with me to discuss how she found her way in the world and in comedy. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at  so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

Michelle Ortiz

Tenacious D. Flight of the Conchords. The Lonely Island. We have plenty of examples of goofy guys getting together and making mirthy music. Where do the Wolves of Glendale fit in? Eric Jackowitz and Ethan Edenburg both came out of South Florida rock bands, and after performing for the Todd Glass podcast, formed a comedy band called The Cooties who were New Faces at Montreal’s Just For Laughs in 2017 and performed on Conan before fizzling out. Eric and Ethan then added Tom McGovern, a former dueling piano player from New York City who performed on the 2021 season finale of American Idol. The trio formed Wolves of Glendale, who already featured in the 2022 Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival. They met up with me before a gig at El Cid in Los Angeles to talk about where they’ve been and where they’re heading next.&nbsp; If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at  so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

Wolves of Glendale

Mike Farah was the first producer hired at Funny or Die, and he has been a vital part of the upstart digital production studio since 2008, when Funny or Die was still known only as an online comedy video platform. The company has produced the critically-acclaimed Brockmire for IFC, Emmy-nominated Billy on the Street, the Peabody award-winning American Vandal for Netflix, the Emmy-nominated Sarah Silverman series I Love You, America for Hulu, and the feature films, Between Two Ferns: The Movie for Netflix, and Impractical Jokers: The Movie for Warner Bros. In the fall of 2022, they’ll present Pickled, a celebrity pickleball tournament hosted by Stephen Colbert for CBS and Paramount+, as well as WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, a feature film biopic spoof that premieres on Roku. As CEO since 2016, Farah sat down with me in his Hollywood offices to take a look back at all the twists and turns in Funny or Die’s history. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at  so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

Mike Farah

Jeff Dunham is undoubtedly the most successful ventriloquist comedian of our lifetime. The 60-year-old from Dallas made his first appearance on&nbsp;The Tonight Show&nbsp;back in 1990, competed in disguise as “Pi-Rat” this fall on&nbsp;The Masked Singer, and in between, he has released 10 comedy specials. Six on Comedy Central starting in 2006, followed by a primetime NBC special, two Netflix specials, then back to Comedy Central during the pandemic, where he debuted a “Completely Unrehearsed Last-Minute Pandemic Holiday Special” for the Friday after Thanksgiving 2020. His 11th special, Me The People, came out this Black Friday, also exclusively on Comedy Central. Dunham sat down with me to talk about his career and the state of comedy/ventriloquism. If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at  so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!

Jeff Dunham

Jen D’Angelo is a comedian, actress and screenwriter in Los Angeles. Originally from the Philadelphia area, she graduated from Northwestern before heading to LA and joining the UCB system as a writer and performer. Her stand-up credits include appearances on @midinght, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Adam Devine’s House Party. D’Angelo also worked with Devine as a performer, writer, story editor and producer on Workaholics — she has similarly pulled double duty in front of and behind the camera on Cougar Town and Young Rock. Since the start of the pandemic, D’Angelo has really come into her own as a feature film screenwriter, scripting Hocus Pocus 2 for Disney+, Totally Killer for Amazon Prime Video, and Quiz Lady for Hulu. And during the Writers Guild strike of 2023, D’Angelo often went viral on social media for deconstructing the disparities in show business today. She sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how she got where she is and where comedy writers and comedy films might go from here. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Jen D'Angelo

Bill O'Neill&nbsp;is an actor and clown from Los Angeles whom you may recognize most readily from his frequent appearances in commercials as a Wendy’s employee. But O’Neill’s career goes back to his early teen years, when he scored a major speaking role in the 2008 film, Drillbit Taylor. A member of L.A.’s burgeoning clown community, he co-starred with his fellow clowns in the 2019 late-night FX series, Two Pink Doors. Last year, one of those clowns, Natalie Palamides, helped direct O’Neill’s latest project, The Amazing Banana Brothers, which took the Edinburgh Fringe by storm and earned him a nomination for Best Newcomer of 2023. O’Neill spoke to me over Zoom as he prepared to take the show to New York City for a limited off-Broadway run in March 2024. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Bill O'Neill

Neal Brennan’s first big claim to fame came two decades ago when he co-created, wrote and executive produced&nbsp;Chappelle’s Show with his friend Dave Chappelle (with whom he’d previously collaborated on&nbsp;Half Baked). Since then, Chappelle has become both the biggest stand-up comedian in the world and a lightning rod for criticism. Brennan, meanwhile, has released three stand-up comedy specials of his own, and directed acclaimed specials for Al Madrigal, Michelle Wolf, and Seth Meyers. Crazy Good, Brennan’s fourth special, and third for Netflix, premiered in April 2024. Before that, he sat down with me on April Fool’s Day to explain why it’s foolish for us as a society to put our faith and trust in comedians to be our sources of news and/or moral leadership. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Neal Brennan

Janine Harouni is a Staten Island native who began her stand-up comedy career in earnest only after moving to London, England, in 2012. Harouni experienced her first viral success as one-third of a sketch group called Muriel whose YouTube fame prompted deals with both the BBC and Quibi, and she’s also appeared onscreen in a recurring role on ITV’s Buffering and a much more supporting role on the big screen in The Batman. Her first solo show at the Edinburgh Fringe, Stand Up With Janine Harouni (Please Remain Seated) directed by the late Adam Brace, earned her a Best Newcomer nomination in 2019. She returned four years later with a more personal and provoking hour about her impending motherhood, Man’oushe, which earned her a Best Show nomination from the Fringe in 2023. Harouni has taken Man’oushe back home to the States for its first big American tour, and sat down with me between shows to talk about her life, career, family, and what she has learned along the way. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Janine Harouni

Will Forte sings his "Gold Man" song that originated as a bit when he was with The Groundlings sketch group in Los Angeles, and closed his Saturday Night Live audition with it.

Will Forte's "Gold Man" Song

Kelly McCaughan is an actor, writer, comedian and clown whose show, Catholic Guilt, was nominated for Best Newcomer by the 2023 ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and then brought back the following Fringe, where her show received a Best Show nomination from the 2024 ISH Edinburgh Comedy Awards. Originally from outside of Pittsburgh, McCaughan went to college with fellow renowned clown Natalie Palamides where she studied theater, learned improv through the Upright Citizens Brigade, and Bouffon from Red Bastard. Her TV credits include roles on HBO’s Crashing and Apple TV+’s Servant, and she has taken her Catholic Guilt show across America. I caught up with her during her SoHo Playhouse run in New York City in November, which took place the weekend after Election Day. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Kelly McCaughan

We did it, comedy fans. We withstood another year of craziness, hundreds upon hundreds of comedy specials, and have gotten my friend and colleague in comedy criticism, Jason Zinoman from The New York Times, to join me for another December to Remember and try to make sense of it all. 2024, a year that started with a fake AI George Carlin and a captivating Katt Williams performance on Club Shay Shay, that saw the relaunch of @Midnight as After Midnight on CBS, that saw Just For Laughs go bankrupt and cancel their Montreal bash only to promise a revival in 2025, that saw the major presidential candidates sit down with so many comedians for election-season podcasts, can we make sense of all of that? It was a year when Netflix went live in a big way, but were their specials funnier than the hundreds of offerings on YouTube, and can upstarts at Hulu, Veeps and Dropout provide some much-needed competition? What does it say about comedy that a comedy D&amp;D show, Dropout’s Dimension 20, as well as a glorified Gong Show in Tony Hinchcliffe’s Kill Tony, both sold out Madison Square Garden? And who were our Comedy MVPs for 2024? It was obviously a big year for Nikki Glaser, who will host the Golden Globes to kick off 2025, and another banner year for Nate Bargatze. It was also a breakout year for Cole Escola and Alex Edelman, each of whom won over Broadway. Josh Johnson and Conner O’Malley won the internet, or showed us how to defeat the algorithms. Whom else did we give shoutouts to? What made us worry about comedy trends? There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Comedy MVPs of 2024 with Jason Zinoman

What’s in a name? Since its launch in 2016 by comedy managers Ryan Bitzer and Damion Greiman, along with founding members Ian Adkins and Anthony Leo, 800 Pound Gorilla Media has grown from a small record label into a king kong of comedy distribution, working with everyone from Kevin Hart’s LOL Network to Bill Burr and Al Madrigal’s All Things Comedy, and releasing a cool 100 comedy specials on their YouTube channel in the year 2024. 800 Pound Gorilla Media also celebrated a new licensing deal with Hulu in 2024 that sees at least one of their specials premiering exclusive there once a month, and in this weekend’s Grammy Awards, they’re not only the record label for nominee Nikki Glaser’s Someday You’ll Die, but also the record distribution partner for Netflix’s nominees, too. I sat down with Anthony and Damion at the end of April 2024 to talk about how the comedy business has changed in recent years, and how 800 Pound Gorilla Media has adapted to change with the times. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

800 Pound Gorilla Media

Brad Alexander composes music for television and musical theater, whose notable works include the music for &nbsp;See Rock City &amp; Other Destinations, which won the 2011 Drama Desk Award, Richard Rodgers Award and BMI Foundation’s Jerry Bock Award, and more recently served as lead composer for the PBS/Amazon animated series, Clifford The Big Red Dog. I remember seeing and hearing Brad as a piano whiz as early as the second grade, as we were elementary-school classmates and friends growing up in small-town Connecticut. We had a great time catching up on how his career went from the Berkshire Theatre Festival to ad agency music producing, working in piano bars both as a soloist and as a dueling pianist — eventually owning his own business, The Flying Ivories . His other staged works and collaborations include Click, Clack, Moo, We The People: America Rocks!, the Emmy-winning PBS series, Peg + Cat, and he wrote the music for Dog Man: The Musical, which is currently on tour across North America. We spoke about all of that, plus the work he’s currently engaged in adapting the film Bread &amp; Roses, into a stage musical with his wife, actress/singer/writer Jill Abramovitz, who’s on standby for the cast of the new all-star Broadway production, All In. There’s definitely a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Brad Alexander

Fooling media outlets into thinking she created the Netflix series&nbsp; may have won the comedian and Fordham grad &nbsp;plenty of new followers on Twitter in 2021, but it didn’t go a long way in making her the pride of her Indian American family back home in Houston. It’s just one of the stories Govindan shares in her debut&nbsp;Off Broadway&nbsp;one-hander, “How to Embarrass Your Immigrant Parents,”produced by the comedians&nbsp;Hasan Minhaj&nbsp;and Daniel Sloss. In the show, she&nbsp;reveals how she struggled with her mental health before finding therapy and stand-up comedy, and learns how to love or at least understand her father’s responses in the family’s group chat. Just 24 hours before her opening night at New York City’s SoHo Playhouse, Abby sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how much has changed for her in the past five years.&nbsp; She explains what she has learned from social media and working with and for more famous comedians, and how Jungle Cat, the stand-up showcase she co-hosts with Mohanad Elshieky, has helped her both mentally and professionally. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Abby Govindan

Mike&nbsp;Drucker&nbsp;is an Emmy-nominated and WGA-winning writer and comedian living in New York. Drucker’s comedy career really began with an internship at Saturday Night Live, where he later contributed to SNL’s Weekend Update as well as The Onion before leaving the city and the East Coast for a gig writing for video games with Nintendo of America. So it makes sense that his memoir, Good Game, No Rematch, would share his love letters to video games and their place in his life and comedy. Drucker sat down with me to talk about how he kept his comedy career humming in the background while he worked for Nintendo and later IGN, before returning to NYC, where he eventually found himself at Full frontal with Samantha Bee, rising to the level of executive producer and head writer by the end of that late-night talker on TBS. He also has written for The President Show, Adam Ruins Everything, Bill Nye Saves The World, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and has enjoyed two stints back in 30 Rock writing for Jimmy Fallon on both Late Night and The Tonight Show. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Mike Drucker

Rory Rosegarten started his career as a comedy manager by the time he was 20 with a whopper of a first client: the already legendary Robert Klein. More than four decades later, as founder and still president of The Conversation Company, Rosegarten manages a small but highly successful comedy clientele — his longtime roster includes both Brian Regan and Ray Romano, his newer client Tom Green recently premiered a documentary, a stand-up special and a docu-series all this year on Amazon Prime Video, and he’s currently working with comedian Gary Valentine on a TV series based on golfer John Daly. Rosegarten sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his teenage years interviewing celebrities first for his high-school and then for Playboy magazine, how he recruited other comics to work with a manager younger than them during the 1980s comedy boom, and how some things change and some things never do in the comedy business — including the fact that Rory has done it all while always living in Long Island. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Rory Rosegarten

The comedian James Tom now jokes about having told they/them pronoun jokes as far back as 2013 quote-unquote “before most non-binary people were born.” Back then, Tom felt alone in the world and in the comedy community. But now, living and performing as a gay trans man, Tom told me over Zoom that he feels more like “the estranged father of the non-binary transmasc comedy community.” We also spoke about Tom’s unique experience getting Just For Laughs New Faces in 2021 when the pandemic forced the festival out of Montreal to Los Angeles, writing for the queer pirate comedy, Our Flag Means Death,&nbsp; on Max, what to make of Dave Chappelle and JK Rowling’s obsession with trans people, and what it has felt like to watch other comedians such as Molly Kearney and Mae Martin successfully navigate similar spaces in show business. Tom’s credits also include appearances on Life &amp; Beth, Tuca &amp; Bertie, an Off-Broadway run in 2023 of one-person-show, Less Lonely, and the 2024 Netflix stand-up showcase, Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda. We spoke about all that and more just before hitting the road for a West Coast tour. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

James Tom

I spoke with comedian Nimesh Patel when he thought he had licensed his new hour, Instant Karma&nbsp;to Netflix. Shortly after our chat, Netflix decided to film a brand-new hour with Patel instead later in 2025. So our chat found him at a crossroads — Patel had just filmed an episode of CNN’s Have I Got News For You, and subsequently performed a second time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Our conversation spanned from his earliest video sketches and emails with me back in 2010, and tracing his time with Michael Che as part of the Monday night Broken Comedy showcase in Greenpoint, where Chris Rock saw him and hired him to write for Rock’s stint hosting the Academy Awards in 2016. Patel told me how he felt inspired&nbsp; watching his peers find fast success, how he handled free-speech backlash at Columbia University well before Columbia made nationwide news for it in recent years, and how Patel’s approach to crowd work has changed since it has become the trendiest thing to see on TikTok. Patel released his previous specials on YouTube, and filmed a short set for Netflix’s Verified Stand Up showcase in 2023. As he preps his new Netflix hour, he is embarking on a live theater tour that extends through the end of 2025. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it! &nbsp; Go see Nimesh live on his theatre tour which is happening now through the end of the year. For show and ticket info go to&nbsp;

Nimesh Patel

Britt Migs&nbsp;is a stand-up and sketch comedian based in New York City who was named a Creator to Watch at the 2024 New York Comedy Festival for characters such as her Italian publicist for the Pope. Migs manages Cracked magazine’s social media and runs the Cracked Comedy Club showcases. In addition, she also has written for Reductress, co-hosts Sunday Sauce monthly at Union Hall with her Meat Cats collaborators, and has previous experience behind-the-camera as a producer on TV shows such as Dr. Oz and Deal or No Deal. In 2025, Migs brought her debut solo show, Dolphin Mode, to the Edinburgh Fringe, where she is reliving how she emerged out of her flop era of divorce to embrace a happier, hornier life. Migs sat down with me to talk about the emotional healing in her show, attending a prestigious performing arts camp in her middle-school summers, how to work in the clip economy without succumbing to the algorithm, and what her relationship with a trans man means to her as a comedian and as an American in 2025. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Britt Migs

"You're Doing It Now," Dana Gould's keynote address to the 2015 Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal.

Dana Gould's Keynote Address "You're Doing It Now" JFL 2015

At 83, Dick Gregory remains an active comedy legend, logging more than 200 stand-up gigs a year. Gregory&nbsp;changed the game in 1961 when he performed at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club in Chicago, and the notoriety of becoming the first black comedian to play to white crowds led him soon thereafter to become the first black performer to sit on the couch with Jack Paar when he was host of The Tonight Show on NBC. His 1963 autobiography was a best-seller, and in 1968, he received the fifth-most votes for President of the United States as a write-in candidate. He has remained politically active and topical to this day. Dick Gregory sat down with me in the green room at Carolines on Broadway before going onstage, and told me not only about how racism impacted his life and career decisions before comedy, but also how Hefner changed his life, and finally, his thoughts on the passing of Muhammad Ali and the prosecution and persecution of Bill Cosby. Yes, Dick Gregory went there. He’s as thought-provoking as ever. So let's get to it!

Dick Gregory

Ms. Pat’s early career sounds a little bit like the role Sally Field’s in the 1988 movie about comedy, Punchline, except only Ms. Pat grew up in a bootleg house in Atlanta, became a mother of two by the time she was 15, sold drugs, was shot twice, and arrested multiple times all before she met her future husband at 19. Her husband brought her stability. Her comedy brought her joy and a newfound purpose in life. How she made that transition, from a big break opening for Katt Williams, through her first time appearing on radio’s Bob and Tom Show, through 2015 where she appeared on NBC’s Last Comic Standing and Comedy Central’s This is Not Happening. All of that, and how far Ms. Pat has come just in the six years since her first trip to Montreal as a New Face in 2010, she shares it all with me now. Since our chat, Ms. Pat has received a put-pilot commitment from FOX to make a half-hour sitcom about her life, starring her and executive produced by Lee Daniels and Brian Grazer. So let’s get to it!

Ms. Pat

Nicole Byer first captured the comedy world’s attention as part of the improv group, Doppelganger, which also featured future Saturday Night Live player Sasheer Zamata. Byer co-starred in a late-night sketch show on FOX produced by The Lonely Island called Party Over Here. She’s also appeared on Lady Dynamite, Transparent, 30 Rock and the movie, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Nicole’s relationship with MTV began with appearances in webseries, then on TV with Girl Code and Ladylike, and now her own starring series based on her life, Loosely Exactly Nicole. She caught up with me before her first-season finale, so let’s get to it! This episode is sponsored by Seeso, and by the Impractical Jokers.

Nicole Byer

Yousef Erakat has upward of 10 million YouTube subscribers for FouseyTube and won the 2016 Entertainer of the Year honors at the Streamy Awards, and yet he said during his acceptance speech at the Streamys that he might also be the most hated personality on YouTube. And still, he reads the comments. Yousef sat down with me to talk about how he went from theater classes to vlogging to prank videos and now to movie theaters. He appeared onscreen in 2016 in Tyler Perry’s Boo: A Medea Halloween, and stars in the new YouTube Red romantic comedy, We Love You. It’s out Nov. 22. So let’s get to it!

Yousef Erakat (aka fouseyTUBE)

One of the all-time greatest cast members of Saturday Night Live, Dana Carvey found his comedy greatness early, winning the San Francisco Comedy Competition when he was 22, then co-starring in a sitcom with Mickey Rooney and a young Nathan Lane, and a bit part in This Is Spinal Tap. Carvey joined SNL at the age of 31 and revolutionized the show’s impersonations by becoming President George H.W. Bush. Carvey also chopped broccoli, pumped you up with Hans and Franz, played Wayne’s sidekick Garth in Wayne’s World, and was and still is the Church Lady. Isn’t That Special? Yes. Yes, it is. Carvey came back in 2016 in a big way, presiding over a comedy game show on USA called First Impressions and releasing a new Netflix special, Straight White Male, 60. It’s my pleasure to catch up with him, so let’s get to it!

Dana Carvey

Nina Conti is the only child of actors – her father, Tom, is a Tony Award winner and Oscar nominee. As for Nina, she began her career as an actress at the Royal Shakespeare Company before her mentor Ken Campbell convinced her to become a ventriloquist. Nina won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2002, best show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2008, and has performed in many British TV shows since, as well as the HBO comedy series, Family Tree, with Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Chris O’Dowd. She’s made two documentaries, “Clowning Around” where she trained as a clown performing in a children’s hospital, and “Her Master’s Voice” where she took her mentor’s puppets to the official Vent Haven Museum in Kentucky. She spoke to me about vocal and theatrical acrobatics, which she puts on full display with great charm in her new improvised show, In Your Face, at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City for a limited time only. So let’s get to it!

Nina Conti

Jo Firestone can be seen on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Chris Gethard Show, and heard on WFMU. Jo was recently named a New Face at the 2016 Just For Laughs Festival. And if you like puns, check out Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers, based on the live show she started with her father that’s been written up in The New Yorker. Jo has carved out her own charming niche in comedy, and frequently does so by mounting her own shows around New York City – among them, the NYC Annual Inner Beauty Pageant, the Unexpectashow, and The Incredible Game Show Showcase. You also can see her wonderfully weird web videos with Aparna Nancherla on RIOT’s YouTube channel. So let’s get to it!

Jo Firestone

Gina Yashere first came to the attention of Americans in 2007 when she appeared on season five of Last Comic Standing (the first international season, which also featured finalists Amy Schumer, Doug Benson, Lavell Crawford and winner Jon Reep). But Yashere already had plenty of successful experience with comedy contests in her native England, a finalist for the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year and then on The Big Big Talent Show. The daughter of Nigerian immigrants, Yashere rose from elevator engineer to sketch comedy player on The Lenny Henry Show, to the first and only British comedian to perform on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. She now lives in New York City, where she just released her newest stand-up special, Ticking Boxes, on Seeso, and began work at her new job as a correspondent on The Daily Show on Comedy Central. So let’s get to it!

Gina Yashere

Jim Norton is a best-selling author and comedian you've seen in multiple stand-up specials on HBO and EPIX and in recurring roles on Louie and Inside Amy Schumer. But you've likely also heard him for almost two decades now every morning on the radio -- first as the third mic with Opie and Anthony, then second mic with Opie, and now co-hosting his own SiriusXM program weekday mornings with Sam Roberts. Norton's newest stand-up special, his first for Netflix, is called Mouthful of Shame. Jim sat down with me at the Olive Tree Cafe above the Comedy Cellar to talk about how we all can get over our personal shame, how he was three years sober when he finally felt ready to pursue his comedy dreams, how Jim Florentine, Andrew Dice Clay and others helped him along the way, why he chose to work with Jay Leno, how to stay above the fray when comedians attack other comedians, and having gratitude that you can get Robert De Niro to spank your bare ass. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!  &nbsp;

Jim Norton

Americans may know Aziz Ansari, Hari Kondabolu or Russell Peters, but Vir Das is the biggest Indian-born comedian and Bollywood actor back home, where he hosted up to four shows at once on Indian television. Das first came to America for college, and he’s back now on an American tour promoting his first Netflix special – TENT – which he filmed in both New Delhi and New York. His 2017 tour also will take him to 20 countries on six continents, including Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the UK, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Belgium, Nigeria and France. Das also curates Weirdass Pajama, India’s largest comedy festival, so let’s get to it!

Vir Das

Lavell Crawford is best known for his portrayal of Huell, the bodyguard for Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and now Better Call Saul. Originally from St. Louis, Crawford rose up the comedy ranks from Showtime at the Apollo to Comicview to Def Comedy Jam to runner-up on season five of Last Comic Standing. He since has been seen multiple times as a panelist on Chelsea Lately and The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, on the big screen in 2016 for both The Ridiculous 6, and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. He provides a voice on Comedy Central’s animated series, Legends of Chamberlain Heights, and headlines a summer 2017 stand-up theater tour called Comedy’s Most Wanted. So let’s get to it!

Lavell Crawford

Nate Bargatze is Jimmy Fallon’s favorite stand-up comedian, and Bargatze has the Tonight Show credits to back that up. Nate also has gone on tour with Fallon, multiple tours to entertain the troops in Iraq and Kuwait, and has two hit comedy albums to boot: Yelled At By A Clown and Full Time Magic. Those are references to his father, who was a clown and now is a magician. Bargatze released his first hour special on Comedy Central in 2016, and he performs in two separate Netflix specials in 2017 — a Half-Hour as part of The Standups collection, and a showcase set in Brad Paisley’s Comedy Rodeo. He’s just as fun to talk to offstage as he is to listen to on it, so let’s get to it!

Nate Bargatze

Jenn McAllister has 3.1 million subscribers and counting on YouTube, where she documents her life as jennxpenn. Jenn started uploading videos to YouTube when she was 12. At 16, she signed a deal with Awesomeness TV, then moved from Bucks County Pennsylvania to Los Angeles. She published her best-selling autobiography, Really Professional Internet Person, in 2015, and for the past two years has starred in the YouTube Red series, Foursome, alongside Logan Paul, for which she won a Streamy Award as best actress in 2016. The third season of Foursome premieres in November 2017, and Jenn caught me up on everything. So let’s get to it!

Jenn McAllister

Bill Hader was nominated for three Emmy Awards for acting during his eight seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, has written for South Park, lent his voice to animated hits such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Inside Out, and served up memorable supporting roles in the films Superbad, Tropic Thunder and Trainwreck. After co-creating the great IFC mockumentary series Documentary Now! He now stars as Barry in HBO’s Barry, about a Marine veteran who becomes a hit-man, but realizes his true potential, or disastrous end, could come by pursuing an acting career in Hollywood. Hader created, wrote, directed and executive produced Barry with Alec Berg, no stranger to HBO as a past EP on Curb Your Enthusiasm and current EP on Silicon Valley. Hader and Berg sat down with me during SXSW in Austin to explain how and why they made Barry. So let’s get to it!

Bill Hader with Alec Berg: HBO's "Barry"

In 2019, Dane Cook is heading out for his first full national tour in six years, and he’s calling it his&nbsp;Tell It Like It Is tour,&nbsp;playing venues such as the Wang Theater in his hometown of Boston and Radio City Music Hall in New York City. How is it now for Dane Cook? Cook sat down with me in The Comedy Store’s podcast studio this month to talk through his comedy and personal demons, as well as go back with me to his historic and pioneering rise through social media in the mid 2000s, culminating in HBO specials, double-platinum records, selling out Madison Square Garden, hosting Saturday Night Live twice and starring in major motion pictures. He was the comedy star of the late 2000s. Dane Cook has been through a lot since then and come out the other side. And he’s ready to talk all about it. So let’s get to it!

Dane Cook

Celeste Barber had appeared on Australian television as a regular on the hospital soap opera All Saints in the late 2000s, but that wasn’t translating into fans or followers on social media. Then Barber decided she’d have fun re-creating the outrageous photo shoots of celebrities and models, and posted her results on Instagram with the hashtag #CelesteChallengeAccepted. Eight months after she took on that challenge in 2015, her hashtag and her Instagram account went viral. Fast forward to 2019, and Barber has published two books (one nonfiction and one for children), toured the US with a stage act, gained more than 6.1 million Instagram followers, and now filmed and released her first comedy special for Showtime, Celeste Barber: Challenge Accepted. I caught up with Celeste in Showtime’s offices in New York City, so let’s get to it!

Celeste Barber

Joe Pera is a Buffalo native who studied film and began his stand-up comedy career at Ithaca College. After college, Pera moved to New York City, where he started a regular showcase with his childhood friend Dan Licata and Charles Gould called the Dan, Joe and Charles Show. Pera’s comedy voice made the leap to late-night TV in 2016 with the animated Adult Swim infomercial, “Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep.” Adult Swim liked it so much they’ve kept bringing Pera back, first with the Christmas special, “Joe Pera Helps You Find the Perfect Christmas Tree,” and two seasons of “Joe Pera Talks with You.” You also may have seen Pera on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or Late Night with Seth Meyers. I sat down with Pera in a diner near his Brooklyn apartment to talk about his life and career, and what may come next. So let’s get to it!

Sean L. McCarthy

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