Speaker 1: Caloroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Hey, their Happy Derby Day. I'm Johnny Mack with your
daily comedy news, daily briefing on stand up comedy, comedians
and the comedy industry. Catherine Blandford is an amy she'd
keep an eye on. She's been to the Derby. She said.
I was in college and took my roommate to the
Derby with me. She'd never been to Kentucky. I was like,
porta potty racist tradition. I forgot to tell her it's illegal.
She gets to the end and she's dancing and celebrating
and people are cheering and the cops are waiting for
her to get down. I was hiding, and she was like,
I'm a team mom, It's my first night out. She
went to the drunk tank for the rest of the Derby.
Ha Lanford started performing comedy at the University of South Carolina.
She says, I've done a competition for a fraternity when
I was in college. It was like a pageant. You
had to do a talent portion. I wrote a sketch
like I was Chelsea Handler. That's when her show Chelsea
Lately was big. I roasted a bunch of frat guys
and then did an interview with the pledge from their fraternities,
Charlie Sheen. Obviously we won and I kinda had the bug.
She hit it big in twenty twenty two when a
clip of her joking about her parents being cousins went viral.
David Spade saw the clip and they connected. Blandford started
opening for Spade. That lasted two years. She started headlining
on her own, moved to La She's a regular at
the Improv and the Laugh Factory. She plans to record
two specials this year. Interesting Maximini was asked by the
Hollywood reporter do you think the rulers of Iran will
ever loosen their grip? Max says, I think so, and
it has I think of it as water and oil.
The ideology hasn't been able to penetrate a culture that
people there have had in their DNA for centuries, go
back to the attacks of the Mongols, to the Arabs,
to the Greeks and so on. These different ideologies and
invasions have affected the country and the people in the culture,
but the foundation cannot be destroyed. The minute young Iranians
get an opportunity to show themselves. I think the world
will see a very friendly, kind and enthusiastic nation who
likes to smile. Look, despite forty seven years of this
Islamic republic mentality, every household still has their parties and gatherings.
They have art shows and man, the music they listen to.
They're so open minded. You have social media and the
younger generation of moderates. Over time, I think it's going
to de escalate. When I was in Iran, you weren't
allowed to have a cassette tape and you'd get arrested
for listening to music. Today, the same regime allows concerts,
obviously with a lot of guidelines, but the progression has happened.
It's inevitable. Max says, I never really thought of the
opportunity to do comedy in Iran. But when I came
back to America, that true sense of freedom that I
can do all these things I could have never done
in Iran was the spark. When I started college, I
decided to become a theater major and pursue acting in comedy.
I was very funny when I did my improv with
my classmates. I discovered stand up comedy through that. In
the last four or five years, a lot of young
stand up comedians have popped in Iran. They're doing open mics,
and they have their little comedy cafes that didn't previously
exist in Iran. I feel like me hanging in there
and doing stand up and four Sea is going to
pave the way for Irunian comedians down the line to
be able to tour and build from there. Right Max,
what do you think he got popular? He said, For
many years, I was disappointed that the industry was not
recognizing my talent. No casting director, producer director, no projects,
no comedy festivals. But I'm one of the lucky people,
and that social media gave me the opportunity to let
the people decide who they like. The Cavalier Daily went
to go see Hannibal Burris. Charlottesville comedian Chris Allen was
the opener we saw. At the end of his sets,
Chris Allen offered a heartwarming introduction for Hannibal Burris, calling
him a personal inspiration who proved that off kilter black
comedians could succeed in the industry. Hannibal grabbed the mic
and jokingly took offense to being called weird by his opener.
Hannibal started with some political comedy Send your letters to
Hannibal Burris, who lamented that America would be in much
better shape if only Donald Trump's television show The Apprentice
had been renewed for another season before his first presidential campaign.
Hannibal did some more topical jokes about the economy and
the war in Iran and did an hour and a
half Wow. This is different to keep things fresh throughout
the set, different for Hannibal. I've seen other comedians do this.
Hannibal used to screen to the back of the stage
to show funny text messages he received from his friends,
and brief video clips that amplify the impact of certain
jokes with meme like outbursts were told. The audio visual
elements were you sparingly until the finale. After stepping off
stage for a moment, Burris returned to an act a
scenario in which a rap song he wrote called the
Tallest Person at This Mexican Party became his most popular
contribution to society. Seems like it was a good show.
Jeff Dunham talked about his new television show on Discovery,
The Cars that Drove Us. This from the folks that
made the toys that made us. In the movies that
made us. Jeff Dunham and developed his love of cars
from growing up on hot wheels. Remember hot wheels, fellow oldies,
we were hot wheels. Person are a matchbox guy. I
was a matchbox guy. I never really liked the hot
wheels matchbox bleeding cool as Jeff. If you guys get
another season, do you know what cars? Jeff said, not
a clue. What I loved about this one was it
with seven great cars. And then in the eighth episode
we did a call It's called the factory. It was
some of the goofy things that car designers put in
the vehicles. So we have an idea they're not be
there's still a cars. And if you pointed a gun
at me right now and said tell me which ones
they are, I couldn't do it because I can't remember
since we've gone through so many ideas. But I like
the idea and a season of having one episode that's
an outlier, kind of a weird one. Switching to comedy,
Jeff Dunham, do you have to temper your act? You know,
times are changing, tastes or changing, Jeff said, timings everything.
I wouldn't want to be a new comic coming up
right now, trying to do stand up comedy because it's
been a long time since I did a show to
a comedy club. But as I understand it now, especially
out here in Hollywood, the audiences can be brutal if
you say anything that's somewhat too left or two right,
and you will get nailed, nailed, nailed by the audience.
I laugh when I talk to my daughter who's in
college in California, and she cancels me about three times
a day. Now, if you listen to me every day,
there's two thousand episodes, you kind of get what my
vibe is. Right, Like I was explaining to her about
Season one of Survivor. I bought this is all true.
I bought the DVDs of season one of Survivor. Fellow oldies,
did you watch Season one of Survivor? Remember Root the
old Guy. There's a clip you can go on YouTube
because I sent this to my daughter where one of
the contestants, Rich is gay. But twenty five years ago,
people are like quizzing him, like, so is it okay
to say that you're homosexual? And Rich is like, yeah,
I'm homosexual. Let me pull up the clips. So you
don't cancel me. Here's Richard Hatch explaining, it's okay, guys.
Speaker 1: You're not just homosexual. I know gay guys don't like
to be called that because you're not homosexual. You're gay.
You know you're I'm homosexual. Do we not like to
be called?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Because it just makes no If you classify that, it's
own classifying people's sexual lifestyle. Right, and well, there is
a lifestyle associated with being gay, but it's not something
you can't say I decided to be gay. But it's
been interesting in this new environment to kind of decide
when to say what about yourselves?
Speaker 2: I think there's only one person you got worried about.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not worry about it at all. As people
get to know me, they learn who I am, and
then eventually over time find out I'm gay. I've never
once in my life encountered prejudice based on my being
homosexual anyway.
Speaker 2: So I want to watch a Survivor one with my
daughter just to watch her freak out and cancel me
for liking a show. Twenty five years ago, I Digress.
Jeff Denham said audiences can be brutal, and if you
say anything that's somewhat too left or to right, you
will get nailed by the audience. They don't like it.
When all this business started rumling a few years ago,
as at a point in my career where there are
two different ways you can go to comedy club. You're
either paying money just to go to the club and
you know who's going to be there, you don't care,
just want a night off, or you're paying a little
bit more to specifically see a particular person. That's a
little bit easier because the audience who pay to see you,
most of them know what to expect. When I was
doing theaters and arenas, it was eighty five to ninety
percent already my crowd. They already loved Acamed the Dead
terrorist Jose Halapino. Want a stick. If I came about
those characters right now, there's no way they would work.
As a comic. You must, as you say, temper things,
or at least I'm not gonna use the word temper.
I'm going to show you how I present the comedy.
And because I do it as a ventrill quist, I
have a little bit of a huge advantage over the
other comics because I can point and counterpoint the dummy
can make a joke and I can argue with him,
and I can say, ah, that's not okay. So it's
a conversation, a debate. I like this a lot. The
true ingredients of comedy are conflict and tension. I can
create that on stage myself, and by the time I'm
finished with whatever I'm talking about, whatever the subject is,
the audience walks away going, I really don't know what
he thinks or what he believes. Friend of the Show, Ismo,
remember he was on. He was a guest. He has
teamed up with a Finland based production house they're pushing
into the live comedy space. Ismo said, it's exciting to
take the next steps with ic S Nordick. We share
the same ambition to build comedy of the Travels internationally
while staying true to its roots. Not entirely sure what
they're up to, but I'm behind it because he's a
cool guy. Hey are friends. At the eight hundred Pound Gorilla.
They're starting a new premium ad free service called Gorilla
Comedy Plus, launching May fifth. Gorilla Comedy Plus will feature
exclusive news specials, plus the full eight hundred Pound Gorilla
catalog that includes more than two hundred and fifty titles.
At launch, you'll have access to things like Star Trek Ruiner,
Patton Oswalt'sle Hour's Heat in Scotch, and specials from the
likes of Pete Holmes Gorilla Comedy Plus, priced at nine
to ninety nine per month. The folks from CNNs have
I Got news for you. They are Roywood Junior, Amber Ruffin,
and Michael ian Black. They will be hosting the upcoming
Sports News and Documentary Emmy ceremonies, but individually on different nights.
On May twenty sixth, Roywood Junior will host the forty
seventh Annuel Sports Emmy Awards. Michael ian Black will host
the Documentary categories of the News and Documentary Emmys on Thursday,
May twenty eighth. Amber Ruffin will host the news categories
on Wednesday, the twenty seventh, Michael ian Black the documentary
categories on the twenty eighth. All these events take place
at the Jazz at Lincoln Centers, Frederick P. Rose Hall
in New York. Paralyzed by Hope that Maria Bamford story
recently played the Milwaukee Film Festival, filmmaker Neil Berkeley said,
so many comedians these days have put her on the
Mount Rushmore of the Greatest of all Time with Richard
Pryor and Rodney Dangerfield. She's that revered in this industry.
I'm so tempted to bog down on a Mount Rushimore
of comedy that has Richard Pryor, Rodney Dangerfield and Maria Bamford.
That's not too bashed Maria Bamford. But you only get
four on Mount Rushmore's. And he also gave a spot
to Rodney I Digress Paralyzed by Hope. The Maria Bamford
Story explores Bamford's comedy journey and the mental health struggles
that have influenced her material. Neil says, I want people
to experience Maria. I want people to know there's this
person who gets up at eight in the morning and
is comedy for ten people in a bookstore, and then
that weekend goes to a thousand seed theater. She has
this ability to turn all of her life's experiences into
these incredibly funny but also useful stories. And this isn't
always the goal of stand up comedy. But you can
go to her shows and everyone in that audience can
hear something or learn about one of her experiences. That
they can empathize with. The film looks at Maria's creative process,
switching between interviews, stand up tapings, and other archival footage
to show how Maria's mental health struggles and trauma have
informed her comedy. And that is your comedy news for today.
I will see tomorrow.