Speaker 1: Callarogas shock media. David Letterman is on Colbert Tonight. I
am Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news, a daily
briefing on stand up comedy, comedians and the comedy industry.
A senter the algorithm loves. We'll talk about late night.
In a bit uh from Variety, Jeff Ross talked about
the real tension behind the roast of Kevin Hart. The
rose continues to be the big topic and that'll get
us through this week and the next week is Colbert Week.
Lot going on in comedy. Jeff Ross was asked if
anything hurts his feelings, like when somebody says you look
like the inside of a clam. The Roastmaster General said,
if the joke is funny and well crafted, it doesn't
hurt my feelings. It makes me proud. If the joke flops,
then I'm insulted. Like write a better joke for me.
I'm the roast master. If you watch the entire roast.
At one point, Kevin was making fun of Jeff, but
Jeff was in the bathroom. Jeff said, I was panicking
because the bathroom next to my dressing room was locked.
I thought I had a time where I could make
it back for that part of his speech. Imagine literally
peeing while I'm hearing the audience laughing jokes about me.
It was one of the most surreal roast moments of
my career. I really did him dirty, and I did
apologize after the party. I should have been in my seat,
But by the time he and the rock plug the
tequila brands for the second time, I whispered to Pete
Davidson and said, all right, I gotta go pee. Ross
talked about the after party. I think everybody was there.
The vibe was over the moon. Kevin seemed like he
was on cloud nine. Was there any real tension behind
the roast? That's the million dollar question, Jeff said. The
only real tension I felt was when Cat Williams appeared
out of nowhere and started going in on Kevin. Kevin
definitely looked a little tense, like these guys may not
have seen each other for a long time. But Kevin
asked for the hatchet to be buried, and immediately the
tension turned into celebration. Whose idea was it to bring Cat?
Jeff Ross says, Kevin's a great comic, but he's also
a really smart producer. He loves to follow the discomfort.
If something's making him uncomfortable, it's going to be great TV.
I would say it was a group brainstorm of who
would be a funny person to bring into this thing,
and Kat Williams was game. He came out with a
cape like a villain, and he left like a friend.
I don't believe they actually talked until he came out
on TV. Jeff shared a joke of his that did
make it into the roast. He would have told it better,
but it goes like this, Kevin, your dad sold crack,
and you literally sell everything except crack. From his comedy
to s tequila to his chain of vegan fast food restaurants,
Kevin is always looking for new ways to make people
throw up. Ha ha. Friddy says, at least inside the room,
Cheryl Underwood crushed. Jeff said, I remember at some point
flopping on the floor when she was on. That's how
hard I was, falling out of my chair. She had
one of the best sets of the night. She's a pro.
She used to walk on stage with her person in
her hand. We worked such dumps together. She didn't trust
the staff or the other comics with her purse in
the back, She's the real deal. Good question here by variety.
Where is this roast rank in terms of crossing the line?
Jeff Ross said there were definitely some lines crossed. The
jokes were super edgy. When Tom Brady came out and
started talking about Kevin's personal life, right out of the gate,
I thought, this truly is a revenge roast. That's how
I actually approached Tom about it. We were at a
party in Las Vegas and I said, Tom, I got
another one percolating. He said, I'm never coming back. Why
would I come? And I said revenge? He goes? Who
you got? I whispered Kevin Hart and his next question
was when he needed a reason to come back. Those
jokes were super reggie, and I could feel the tension
in the room. Even though it was funny, there was
a realness to it. I will weigh in here. I
think having Tom Brady in the laid off spot was
a mistake. I wrote about this on my substack, and
I think I talked about earlier in the week. I
think the move might have been open. With the shaker
of Kat Williams and having confidence in Cat to be funny.
I think that would have prepped the room a little bit.
Tom just not being a comedian, I don't think warmed
up the room well enough, which affected a lot of
the first half of the show. When I finally watched
the whole thing, I think the second half was a
little stronger, mainly because of Tony Hingecliff and Kat Williams.
So I'm not sure they sequenced this thing right. Roddy
was curious what was actually off limits. Jeff Ross said,
people always asked that. Kevin never once said to me,
please don't do this, Please don't do that for me.
There's a sportsmanship to it. I want to scratch the skin,
but I don't want to break it. Nothing was off limits.
I don't think there was a single topic from Kevin's
life that didn't get brought up. It's really just a
question of how avert you want to be. Do you
want to be subtle or do you want to smash
them over the head with a dollhouse. I don't know
anybody could look at the roast and call it water down.
Roddy did a good job with this. They asked, you know,
the show's very tightly produced. There are writers in rehearsals.
How do you balance that with the element of surprise.
Jeff said, I gave a lot of the credits to
my partner, Casey Patterson. Joe put fake names on dressing
room signs. The scripts don't circulate to the entire staff.
The crew doesn't read the comics material. I don't know
what Chelsea's speech is going to be. She doesn't know mine.
Kevin doesn't know what's coming from anybody that keeps it real,
you are genuinely messing with somebody live on television. There's
a lot that goes into that side of it, and
I'm only surprised. Another good follow up, There were a
lot of times when people would skip a joke they
had on the teleprompter. What goes into the decision to
edit yourself in real time? Jeff Ross said, I'm careful
not to let that happen because I hate going skip it.
It looks so written. But sometimes in a live show,
it's inevitable that people want improvise, or maybe the joke
was too similar to the joke that was made earlier
in the night and doesn't seem funny anymore. Is sometimes
the non comics get cold feet on a certain joke. Honestly,
the most important job in that entire show is probably
the teleprompter operators. That's a high wire act. You get
all sorts of deliveries. Some people are mumbling somemmer rushing,
and those operators stay right with us the whole time.
It's remarkable. Two more. Will you be able to get
another goat in a couple of years, Jeff said, I
think so, Kevin do. It opens it up to almost
anybody whos at the top of their game wants to
show the world they're a good sport. All right, Who
do you want to roast next? Jeff's aid a pop
star or a rock star would be great. A rapper
would be great. I could see Drake getting roasted in
being a great one. One of my all time favorite
ideas is Stevie Wonder. I always say the roast of
Stevie Wonder. You got to hear it to believe it.
Vulture had the headline how Cheryl Underwood won the roast
of Kevin Hart. Despite being one of the least recognizable
faces on a dais that included celebrities like Chelsea Hanler
and Pete Davidson, Underwood had consistently been the target of
some of the Knight's sharpest barbes, adding to the weight
of the moment. Underwood followed Tony Hinchcliff, but when Underwood
got on the podium, the room's atmosphere reset. Her set
was a triumph, in part because her energetic delivery injected
life in the proceedings after the show had slipped into
a monotonous rhythm halfway through its bloated, nearly three hour runtime.
There were only so many times one could see Handler
called a horror or heart marked for his height before
it grows tedious. And an event that featured surprise appearances
from Venus and Serena Williams, Heart Enemy Cat Williams and
The Rock, no one got ovation like Underwood following her set. Boy,
I just looked at the we are going to be
long again. I got like seven stories of been kicking
since Monday. Remind me I said that when it's July
fourth week and I'm googling George Lopez Tacos to fill
some space all right. Radar Online is a gossip website.
Their headline Jimmy Kimmel pushing himself out the door at ABC.
How cost A Comics shot himself at the foot with
dead Trump gags. I don't believe the story at all,
no offense. Radar Online. One of the reasons I say
that is because ABC had Jimmy Kimmel host the Upfronts.
But anyway, Radar Online says ABC executives are allegedly reconsidering
Jimmy Kimmel's future after backlash over his Millennia Trump joke.
They remind us the Kimmel repeated the joke on a
show and said critics overreacted, and network insider said the
original joke was already viewed internally as reckless, doubling down
turned it into something potentially costly to the network. They
can't be too concerned because they had Jimmy host the Upfronts.
Jimmy Kimmel's all the Upfronts audience. I didn't think i'd
see you guys again either. Yeah, the bad boy of
Data and Measurement Solutions is back. I've been through so
much BS this year it actually made me appreciate this BS.
You know, usually in order for ABC to pull you
off the air, you have to throw a cher at
your Mormon boyfriend. Yes, the President tried to get me
canceled over the last six months. That's one way to
look at it. Another way is you could say I've
generated unparalleled engagement across a variety of platforms. Luckily, thanks
to our partners in Washington, we're up twenty five percent
among viewers. It's a big deal to have your numbers
go up nowadays. But that said, if Johnny Carson woke
up one day with my ratings, he'd have gone straight
under the sink and chugged all the DRAINO Oh, Kimmel
had more. He said, I cost our company a lot
of money this year, billions. It's very possible that no
employee in the history of any company has caused their
employee more than hiring me twenty four years ago. Just
from a purely mathematical standpoint, it was the worst personnel
decision that Disney Corporation has ever made. Not even the
captain of the Exxon Valdiz did more damage. Jimmy said,
this will be the first Super Bowl on ABC in
twenty years, and we're gonna milk the but Jesus out
of it. We're gonna spend the whole year promoting what's
already the most popular thing on earth. And as if
the country isn't divided enough, we put the game on
Valentine's Day just to be dicks. Let me tell you
what the Havetime Show was going to be this year.
The whitest stuff you've ever seen. Goodbye, bad Buddy, Welcome back,
Oh Town. Jimmy talked about his appearance on Colbert the
other night. As you know, CBS is turning eleven thirty
five PM into the least time slot, least likely to
fend the president, with a rerun of Byron Allen's comics
on Leash from two thousand and seven, featuring Paula Poundstone
and Andy Dick. Poor Steven. It's bad enough to lose
your job, imagine getting replaced by the owner of the
Weather Channel. So I look. Jimmy was on fire. He said,
you know, in the past, I've come here to mock
the other network shows. Was all very competitive, but now
we're like a bunch of dirty, starving little chihuahuas under
the table waiting for a chicken leg to drop. For
the first time of think ever, I'm rooting for CBS.
They've got a lot of great returning shows, and they've
got some great news shows. Ncis New York answers the
question what if LLL coolj partnered up with another white
guy in a different city. They're also doing the Prices
Right at Night now. Oh we tagged this with a
dirty pun. The price is right at Night on the
nighttime version instead of a flat screen TV, the winner
gets something men like in an alley behind the studio,
Naughty Jimmy. For the first time in eighteen year, CBS
was not number one in total viewers. NBC is number one,
and they're saying they're number one. Are you allowed to
brag about being number one when you had the Olympics
in the Super Bowl? Only if you have them again
next year and you don't. Meanwhile, poor Fox was in
last place again and their big plan to turn that
around as a revival of Baywatch. This is a reboot
for those who watched the first eleven seasons of Baywatch
and thought, but that can't be the whole story. As
for us at ABC, except for all the domestic violence,
we're really doing great. Dancing with the Stars is hotter
than your grandma's underpants at a Michael Boublaz show. The
Rookie was among the most streams shows among viewers under eighteen.
Young people love The Rookie and do you know why
I'm actually asking? Does anyone know why this is happening? Meanwhile,
over at NBC, Seth Meyers hosted their upfronts. Seth Meyers said,
we have taken down CBS, referring to for the first
time in two decades, NBC will take the broadcast crown
for total viewers in the TV season. He tagged his
premise with, well, the Ellisons did, but I'd like to
think we helped. Seriously, what's going on over there? They're
so in the pocket for Trump that I heard next
year Survivors in the strait of her moves. Not bad?
Seth Again, CBS didn't not holding upfront presentation this year
because CBS Upfront just describes how they paid Trump to
drop the lawsuit. Seth Myers made fun of Paramount's winning
bid to buy Warner Brothers, joking Comcast actually made a
bid too, but no one thought we were actually going
to get it. It was kind of like that one
friend who always pretends to reach for his wallet after
the check comes. No, no, no, Comcast, you get it
next time. So, speaking of the merger that would join
Paramount Plus on HBO, Max, Seth Meyers said, so now
you get all your favorites in one place. Speaking of streamers,
Comcast sat on its most recent earnings call that Peacock
is approaching profitability in the same way Kevin Hard is
approaching seven feet tall. But it's an exciting time for Peacocks.
He's an eight of Love Island USA cent Mirror in June,
So please get the HPV vaccine. More Seth. NBC Universal
poached Yellowstone creator Taylor shared in last year from Paramount
and a deal worth a reported one billion dollars, which
means I'm finally going to get a call from my
dad asking what channel's NBC on. NBC has the Emmys
this year? Well, they're airing here. HBO is the one
that's actually going to have them. Some more random jokes,
I'm seth Myers, or as the FCC calls me. Next.
Netflix is hosting It's Upfront on a pier on the
Hudson River, because once a Netflix show hits two seasons,
that's where dumps its body. NBC is turning one hundred
years old, which means right now it's watching CBS. James
Cordon is returning the Late night I know, are you
so excited? He was at the Fox Upfronts with Michael Strahan.
They announced FIFA World Cup twenty twenty six after Hours
on Fox with James Cordon, whereas we're going to refer
to it Cordon. James Cordon, the host of FIFA World
Cup twenty twenty six After Hours on Fox with James Cordon,
said it's gonna be me former England soccer captain Rio
Ferdinand and one of my favorite comedians on Planet Earth,
Ian Carmel. Every night after the games, we're gonna be
trying to have a lighthearted look at the World Cup,
talking about the games, talking about anything that may have
happened that day. The World Cup takes place at June
eleventh two July nineteenth in the United States of America,
Canada and Mexico. If you live in New Jersey and
you want to take the train to the game, because
they're not allowing this is real. This is a big
thing in New Jersey. So you can't park at the stadium, Okay,
you can't take a ride share to the stadium. There's
a train. For a while that they were charging one
hundred and fifty dollars for the train. Yeah, and now
they've cut that to like I think like one hundred
and ten dollars a summer. It's still over one hundred
dollars to go basically a mile and a half, but
there's no other way to get to the stadium. I'm
so annoyed the World Cup finally comes to basically in
my backyard and there's no way to get there. I
might get down a Philadelphia for a game. I digress.
James Cordon, the host of FIFA World Cup twenty twenty six.
After Hours on Fox with James Corden, said soccer is
a massive part of my life. It really feels like
now is an incredible time for North America to be
hosting this tournament, and we're really going to try and
have some fun. Michael Strahan asked Cordon why he wanted
to work for Fox. Cordon said, because they got the
rights of the games. I can't stress this enough. If
they didn't have the rights of the games, I'd do
the show on the network that did. Boy, the amount
of stuff I'm bumping from this program lately. Let's check
in with a friend of the show, Jason Zinneman. He
writes for The New York Times. He was out in
la and caught John mulaney and wrote John Mulaney's New
Hour range from kids' birthday parties to sweeping takes on
our political mood. I played do that RFK impression the
other day. Zinniman rights, there's a sarcastic register in John
Mulaney's toolkit that is deepened with age. In his New Hour,
he's often lingered in this rye voice, building arguments with it,
adding absurdity upon absurdity, and so the ironic distance seems
to shrink, and his tone became less smirky than coherent
and righteous. It's one of the many small miracles of
form that explain why John mulaney is setting the pace
and stand up right now. As a precocious performer, he
could seem older than he was getting laughs of that incongruity.
Now he is a distinctive age appropriate voice as a persicone,
cranky and aloof Dad. Milani is in a topical of
personal comic, but he dabbles in both getting laughs out
of hot takee premises like why old people shouldn't vote,
quoting m'lini, why would you order for the table if
you were about to leave the restaurant? But his greatest
strength here is as a sharp, hilarious cultural critic. Zinneman
also wrote about rising stars at the festival, pointing out
they tend to be hungrier, harder working, and funnier. Friend
of the show Jason Zinneman was impressed by Megan Gailly,
who opened for Anthony Jesslinik. Gailly made a case for
Charles Barkley as the Democrat's best hope for president, and
had a funny joke about men who won't shut up
about their colonoscopies, which makes me laugh because I, uh,
earlier today was atty whatever the colon oskwey doctor is called,
and my friend called and I texted her back and
I'm like, can't talk. And then on the way home
we were talking colonoscopies, So yeah, I feel you. Megan
Zenneman also liked Sophie Buttle at the Hollywood Improv. Jason
tells us Sophie waited into a joke that mentioned transgender people,
then pause to wonder if it would be amusing if
she became as obsessed with the subject as Chappelle is
her quote, I'm not famous enough to have opinions that crazy,
but if I get famous, I'm gonna start an even
bigger fight with an even smaller group of people. Oh
and we are getting so long today, let's wrap this up, John, Okay.
Heather Shaw has announced her debut special, all Right Sea,
We'll come out on YouTube today. In all Right Sea,
Heather Shaw tackles everything from gay bars and Caitlyn Jenner
to pop culture and more. That's Heather Shaw's all Right
Sea Out Today on YouTube. Friend of the show, Dylan
from the Facebook group has probably watched it twice by
the time I even get out of bed. If you
like this program without commercial interruption, open up the Apple
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Believe me, I wish it could be automated, but it's
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After that it's five bucks a month. So on day
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Actually I don't because Apple takes thirty percent. So that's
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But it's still a great way to support the show.
See tomorrow