Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media. Hello, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily
Speaker 1: comedy news. My hat is off to whoever handles the
Speaker 1: press for the Top Secret Comedy Club in the UK.
Speaker 1: They got worldwide pickup on this one, the headline from
Speaker 1: The Guardian. One of the UK's leading comedy clubs has
Speaker 1: banned guests with botox. Yeah, this made worldwide news. Good job.
Speaker 1: The Top Secret Comedy Club has hosted some of the
Speaker 1: biggest names in comedy, with star acts Jack Whitehall, Amy
Speaker 1: Schumer and Dave Chappelle gracing the stage. In a drastic move,
Speaker 1: those with botox will be unable to see similar stars
Speaker 1: live at the London venues. After stand up, acts shared
Speaker 1: concerns that audience members with frozen faces are not reacting
Speaker 1: to their jokes. Is this a real thing? Comedians? I
Speaker 1: might have to reach out to some comedians and ask them,
Speaker 1: is this a real thing that the people have so
Speaker 1: much botox that they're not laughing at your jokes and
Speaker 1: it's affecting your performance? You see? As The Guardian explains,
Speaker 1: botox is a neuromodulator, which is a type of injectable
Speaker 1: that temporarily disrupts the nerve signals to the muscles that
Speaker 1: prevents them from contracting and producing the appearance of wrinkles.
Speaker 1: The Guardian further explains the rising tweakments, particularly among twenty somethings,
Speaker 1: has risen sharply in recent years. Will then estimated one
Speaker 1: million botox injections carried out in the UK each year.
Speaker 1: Mark Rothman, the owner of the Top Secret Comedy Club
Speaker 1: who has just an amazing pr team kudos to you guys, explained,
Speaker 1: our incredibly salented comedians are fed up with performing to
Speaker 1: reactionless faces. I've had numerous complaints from performers who find
Speaker 1: it increasingly challenging to gauge audience engagement and bounce off
Speaker 1: their reactions. Comedy thrives on connections, and facial expressions play
Speaker 1: a huge part. We want people to laugh, cry, frown sneer,
Speaker 1: but frozen faces from botox impact the entire atmosphere. We
Speaker 1: hope try laying this band will help move the needle
Speaker 1: and get fit reactions back into the room for the
Speaker 1: benefit our comedians and the audience. I had to check
Speaker 1: to make sure it wasn't the beginning of April. Nope,
Speaker 1: this came out in March. One of the venues. Regular
Speaker 1: stand up acts is Andrew Mensa, and he said performing
Speaker 1: to an audience with frozen faces can be incredibly tough.
Speaker 1: Comedy is a two way street. We feed off the
Speaker 1: energy and reactions to the crowd. Mark and the team
Speaker 1: are always devising new ideas to support as comedians. This
Speaker 1: might be his best one yet. Paul Chowdrey, who's going
Speaker 1: to perform at the club in March, says, my face
Speaker 1: barely moves on stage. I wouldn't want to see the
Speaker 1: same thing staring back at me so effective. Immediately, audience
Speaker 1: members will be vetted by the door staff, and now
Speaker 1: the door staff has been trained to carry out ID
Speaker 1: checks and expression texts. Rothmun warned, we're dead serious about
Speaker 1: the band and if you're surprised, we need to see that.
Speaker 1: We're looking forward to welcoming faces all the new that
Speaker 1: can still move in our venue soon. Well done, pr team.
Speaker 1: This next item, I didn't react well too, and then
Speaker 1: I thought about it and I calmed the heck down.
Speaker 1: My initial take was all good things get ruined, and
Speaker 1: then I thought about it more. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: what it is, John Mulaney's talk show, which is back
Speaker 1: on Netflix on Wednesday is now going to include commercial
Speaker 1: breaks for all Netflix subscribers, whether you're subscribed to one
Speaker 1: of the platforms, AD supported, tears or not. Following the
Speaker 1: live stream, the ad breaks will be removed for AD
Speaker 1: free subscribers. So this is even more of an incentive
Speaker 1: for me to not stay up late on Wednesday night
Speaker 1: and just watch it Thursday. The show premieres this Wednesday
Speaker 1: at ten pm Eastern seven West. But I thought about
Speaker 1: this commercials annoying, et cetera. However, I've produced a lot
Speaker 1: of talk radio in my day, and I remember when
Speaker 1: I was at Sirius and we were commercial free music.
Speaker 1: The talk stations had commercials. And among the reasons you
Speaker 1: have commercials on a talk show, sure, money's great, we
Speaker 1: like money. I like commercials. I have commercials in this show.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to be hypocrite on that standpoint.
Speaker 1: But you do you when doing a talk show, it
Speaker 1: is convenient to have time outs so you can connect
Speaker 1: with the host, or regroup or stop talking for a second,
Speaker 1: like right now. Honestly, this is the third straight podcast
Speaker 1: that I'm recording, and my voice is already starting to go.
Speaker 1: But I'm not live, so I have the luxury. I
Speaker 1: can go get vitamin water or something, or take a
Speaker 1: break or finish this up an hour from now. So
Speaker 1: when you're live, you know, there's that maybe a segment
Speaker 1: go sideways, maybe the producer wants to get in your ear.
Speaker 1: So having breaks does make sense totally to me from
Speaker 1: that standpoint. So I get it, and they're taking them
Speaker 1: out of the replace, so you know, it's not a
Speaker 1: ton of money grab so I don't think I have
Speaker 1: a problem with this. So you know the other things
Speaker 1: you could do is you could throw it to some
Speaker 1: pre recorded thing. I'll just point you towards. You know,
Speaker 1: on John Oliver Show, the opening segment always crushes and
Speaker 1: then they do the and now segment for like a
Speaker 1: minute in the two hole, ten years, in fourteen years,
Speaker 1: in whatever we're in with that show. I've yet to
Speaker 1: see one of those segments really fly. So could they
Speaker 1: pretape some stuff to John the timeout? They could. If
Speaker 1: you've ever listened to a streaming radio station that fills
Speaker 1: their commercial breaks with features, those are always lame, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a professional broadcast where it just throws it to
Speaker 1: a Budweiser commercial, sometimes that actually is the best thing.
Speaker 1: So I don't really have a problem with this one.
Speaker 1: I'm excited. Mark Maren has announced a new stand up
Speaker 1: comedy special and to be on HBO later this year.
Speaker 1: Variety says it will consist of material from his All
Speaker 1: Into where it'll be filmed in New York City in May.
Speaker 1: It'll be Maren's sixth stand up special, two years after
Speaker 1: his latest for HBO, which was From Bleak to Dark,
Speaker 1: in which Maren discussed the death of his partner Lynn Shelton.
Speaker 1: No release date, no trailer yet, but looking forward to that.
Speaker 1: Chronogram spoke to Patton Oswalt Paton explain where he is
Speaker 1: right now in terms of working politics into the act.
Speaker 1: He says, I try to do my version of punching up,
Speaker 1: which is by focusing on Elon Trump, Bezos, whoever's letting
Speaker 1: this crap happen. I've kind of cranked up the absurdity.
Speaker 1: Things are so dark, it's such an enormous thing to
Speaker 1: expect a comedian to address. But it's certainly not the
Speaker 1: whole set. Our current situation is massive, but I also
Speaker 1: think there are things that they're even bigger there aren't
Speaker 1: being addressed, like the environment and AI. I'm obviously being
Speaker 1: affected by what's going on. But I also sometimes feel
Speaker 1: like the MC and Cabaret who's saying, what the hell
Speaker 1: am I supposed to be doing here? Elon is putting
Speaker 1: us through all this because he wants to be cool,
Speaker 1: and he's not cool. He's like the kid whose dad
Speaker 1: owns the laser tag place and thinks all the kids
Speaker 1: should like him, but he's obnoxious and means so no
Speaker 1: one wants to hang out with him. A few years ago,
Speaker 1: Patten got into a Twitter feud with a follower, which
Speaker 1: Patent resolved by contributing to the man's go fundme. Paige
Speaker 1: Patten explains, you could see how miserablely was. You're seeing
Speaker 1: similar things now with a lot of these Trump voters
Speaker 1: online going wait, my job is gone, or oh he
Speaker 1: took away my medicaid. They want someone else to be
Speaker 1: punished for their pain. They don't realize that the people
Speaker 1: they're voting for don't care about them. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times when you see someone being racist or transphobic,
Speaker 1: it's because they're in a lot of pain they can't
Speaker 1: articulate it. That'd rather take power over growth. Growth involves pain,
Speaker 1: just siding with the most popular and the most powerful
Speaker 1: saves you a lot of pain, and they're looking to
Speaker 1: avoid that. And I don't blame them. Everybody wants to
Speaker 1: avoid pain. No one's looking out for them. Trump voters
Speaker 1: are especially being exploited, abused, and used by the powers
Speaker 1: that be. Donald and Elon could care less about their supporters.
Speaker 1: They openly despise them, says Paton. And it's become very
Speaker 1: clear quickly that none of these billionaires give a hoot
Speaker 1: about these people. So of course they're going to lash out.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you, I would I get it? Send your
Speaker 1: letters to Paton. Oswalt from short Oal comedian Harreeth a
Speaker 1: Scander has been fine the equivalent of seventeen hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty British pounds after making a punt about the word
Speaker 1: ham was deemed to have mocked Islam. The Facebook post
Speaker 1: was pulled by Meta at the request of Malaysia's Communications watchdog.
Speaker 1: That watchdog also demanded that the account be shut down completely.
Speaker 1: The comedian had posted a joke on social media about
Speaker 1: an iced coffee drink called ham something ham sapping the
Speaker 1: Cantonese word for leude, as well as containing the name
Speaker 1: of a port product forbidden to Muslims. Harriest wrote, I'm
Speaker 1: so confused. My faith is at risk. This iced coffee
Speaker 1: drink will lead me down the wrong path in so
Speaker 1: many ways, not just tempting to me to become whatever
Speaker 1: the offensive term is here. I'm not here to offend,
Speaker 1: but I'll confusing me with the word ham in. It
Speaker 1: is Candor and a woman named Cecilia who made the
Speaker 1: same joke online where each find ten thousand Malaysian ringots,
Speaker 1: which is the equivalent of six weeks average salary in
Speaker 1: Malaysia is Candor was named the funniest person in the
Speaker 1: World in an international competition run by The Laugh Factory
Speaker 1: in America back in twenty sixteen. He released a Netflix
Speaker 1: comedy special called I Told You So in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: and regularly tours Asia and Australia. Very interesting. Let's see
Speaker 1: what's happening at south By Southwest today, final day of
Speaker 1: comedy over there at four o'clock the street meet a
Speaker 1: comedic celebration of food trucks, grease pits and sandwich shops.
Speaker 1: This is Joe Deorosi's thing. I think this is so
Speaker 1: much fun. He'll be joined by Jeames Adiomian. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you one thing south by the talent that they flew
Speaker 1: down there. They're getting a lot of work out of them.
Speaker 1: It's the same people doing the same shows over and over.
Speaker 1: But it's like, hey, you can come, but you're doing
Speaker 1: six shows. Stuart Goldsmith tapes his Comedians Comedian podcast again,
Speaker 1: this time with Pete Lee. Feel like Stuart could have
Speaker 1: gotten better guests. They were a better guests. Nothing against
Speaker 1: Pete Lee, but your names to be gotten down there.
Speaker 1: Doug Love's Movies, they're taping their podcast six Stand Up
Speaker 1: at Clown Live Comedy at the Creek in the Cave
Speaker 1: at seven. So weird to be The Creek of the
Speaker 1: Cave is like the Brooklyn Dodgers of comedy, like they
Speaker 1: used to be at Astoria now they're in Austin Stand
Speaker 1: Up and Clown. James Adomian, Yeah, we're flying you down.
Speaker 1: You're doing every show, James, Chad Damiani, Megan Galli, Christina
Speaker 1: Catherine Martinez, Mary Neely, Opi Alagbaju, Nick Fune. You've heard
Speaker 1: me saying the same names over and over. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can come, but you're gonna work eight o'clock. Pretty robust
Speaker 1: for a Monday night at a Comedy Festival. I said
Speaker 1: that about Sunday, but Mondays are usually deader than dead.
Speaker 1: Gotham Comedy presents Slynn Coppletz, Caitlin Polufo, Brian Simpson. No
Speaker 1: offense of those comedians. I feel like it's missing a
Speaker 1: bigger name there. Especially Gotham is a real good club
Speaker 1: and I know the owner. Something's missing there that just
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right to me. Nine o'clock stand up Downtown.
Speaker 1: It's got that AI I think generated image of what
Speaker 1: a comedy audience might look like. Greer Born seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of him all of a sudden, Drew Dunn, Alex English,
Speaker 1: Rich Voss, and our final show for the festival is
Speaker 1: called appropriately the Last Laugh. Also within probably possibly maybe
Speaker 1: perhaps AI generated image of what a mostly white comedy
Speaker 1: audience would look like, and by mostly I mean white.
Speaker 1: This lineup, Reggie Conquest. I don't think I've said his
Speaker 1: name right, all right, Reggie got in there at the
Speaker 1: last moment. Pete Lee, Kristin, Toomey and Godfrey. That is
Speaker 1: the south By Southwest Comedy Festival. Now we doing on time,
Speaker 1: all right? We can get one more in here today.
Speaker 1: The Trevor's City Comedy festival announced their twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: lineup with top comedians and diverse events. They Traverse City
Speaker 1: Comedy Festival will feature dozens of comedians from across the
Speaker 1: country and events from improv and roast battles to all
Speaker 1: star showcases and stand up sets April tenth through the twelfth,
Speaker 1: in of course, Traverse City. Pretty good lineup. You've heard
Speaker 1: of these people. I don't have to explain who Mark
Speaker 1: Maron is or Jay Farrow, Natasha Lazeiro, Gosh Blue. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty impressive top four there, Traverse City. Other shows
Speaker 1: include The Funny Women of a Certain Age Julius Scotti,
Speaker 1: Leanne Lord. They're not the funny Women of a Certain age,
Speaker 1: they are their own things. So Funny Women of a
Speaker 1: Certain Age full stop. Also performing Julia Scotti, Leanne Lord
Speaker 1: in I'm just skimming down here a good thirty forty names.
Speaker 1: N most of you won't know any of them, so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna just read you a list of people
Speaker 1: you don't know. I'm not dumping on them. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying they're less famous than Mark Maron. And if you
Speaker 1: listen all the time, you know that. I encourage listeners.
Speaker 1: If you go to Comedy Festival. Go see the smaller shows.
Speaker 1: I love Mark Maren you know what he's gonna do.
Speaker 1: You can watch Mark Maron on HBO later this year.
Speaker 1: Go see the smaller shows. That's where the action is
Speaker 1: at the Comedy Festival. Events at the festival will include
Speaker 1: the Daily Dozen Showcase, featuring a dozen comedians on stage
Speaker 1: telling their best and funniest jokes. Well I hope they're
Speaker 1: their best and funniest jokes at a showcase. Roast Battle,
Speaker 1: a single elimination ross battle tournament featuring eight fearless comedians
Speaker 1: with judges in the audience determining the winners. Comedy Rubble
Speaker 1: a lineup of thirty hilarious comedians, each given a lightning
Speaker 1: fast ninety seconds to showcase their comedic talents. So that's
Speaker 1: interesting because there's a big difference between doing ninety seconds
Speaker 1: and a tight five or an eight, or a ten
Speaker 1: or an hour ninety seconds. Again, just listen to Kill Tony.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of people can kill for a minute? Can
Speaker 1: you kill for an hour? But okay, that's fun, And
Speaker 1: now that I say that out loud, that's probably the
Speaker 1: inspiration for Comedy Rubble. How about big fun Murder the
Speaker 1: improv Murder Mystery, in which six improvisers act out a
Speaker 1: completely improvised murder mystery. It's never the same show twice.
Speaker 1: There's the Clean Comedy Showcase. If that's your thing. If
Speaker 1: that's not your thing, go see the Dirty Comedy Showcase.
Speaker 1: Love it. There's also something called the Traverse City Kamakazi
Speaker 1: Comedy Show that has me a little bit scared, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get out here. That is your comedy news
Speaker 1: for today. See tomorrow.