Speaker 1: Kalaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your
Speaker 1: daily comedy news. Today. It is the twenty five best
Speaker 1: stand up specials of the year, and let's just dive in.
Speaker 1: Why are you doing this now, John? The year is
Speaker 1: not over. Well. You see, I hired a publicist and
Speaker 1: she needs to get the lists out to everybody else
Speaker 1: who's doing their year end recap. So I can't wait
Speaker 1: until New Year's Eve to put this out, so I
Speaker 1: have to jump in now. So with that said, there
Speaker 1: are at least five notable specials not part of this
Speaker 1: list because as I recorded this on Tuesday, they were
Speaker 1: not available yet. They include Sarah Sherman Live and In
Speaker 1: the Flesh, which was on HBO last night tomorrow, Robbie
Speaker 1: Hoffman's wake Up is on Netflix coming up on the nineteenth,
Speaker 1: Kamil nan Gianni's Night Thoughts, which Vulture says is the
Speaker 1: best special of the year based on the trailer. I
Speaker 1: can't believe that, but okay. Tom Sigora has a Netflix
Speaker 1: special on Christmas Eve, and Ricky Gervais has Mortality on
Speaker 1: Netflix on December thirtieth. So there's a good chance all
Speaker 1: five of those or at least four of the five
Speaker 1: of those make my revised end of the year list,
Speaker 1: which I'll put out around New Year's Day. But for
Speaker 1: right now, these are the top twenty five stand up
Speaker 1: specials of the year. I'm gonna jump right in, not
Speaker 1: mess around, not tease you, just tell you what it is.
Speaker 1: The answer is the top stand up special love twenty
Speaker 1: five is Mark Maren's Panicked from HBO Max. This is
Speaker 1: Maren at his absolute best. He found a way to
Speaker 1: channel all the anxiety of the current movement into something
Speaker 1: both deeply personal and universally relatable. This was the year
Speaker 1: Mark Maron walked away from his podcast sadly, but he
Speaker 1: handed it in his best work. Mark Maren's Panicked easily
Speaker 1: the best stand up special of the year. Number two
Speaker 1: Kevin Hart's Acting My Age on Netflix. Sorry haters, this
Speaker 1: one's just funny. It's Kevin Hart doing material about getting
Speaker 1: a little bit older. Laugh or laugh. It's there. I'm
Speaker 1: a guy sitting on the couch. Kevin Hart made me laugh.
Speaker 1: That's the mission. Mission accomplished. Same note from my number
Speaker 1: three special of the year, Matt Rife Unwrapped, a Christmas
Speaker 1: crowd work special. I know you like to hate on
Speaker 1: Matt Rife. I'm sorry, he's funny. I posed it in
Speaker 1: the Facebook group Daily Comedy News Podcast Group that Matt
Speaker 1: Rife Special's funny and people are like, really, Johnny mag
Speaker 1: you might be, as they say in Queens, are you
Speaker 1: on crack? And no, I'm not on crack. I'm on
Speaker 1: the couch watching Matt Rife and laughing. And most of
Speaker 1: the people who took my word for it clicked on
Speaker 1: it and went, oh wow, that was really funny. Bit
Speaker 1: of a drop to the rest of the top tier here.
Speaker 1: So those three, I think stand alone a bit of
Speaker 1: a gap here down to number four. Jim Jeffries to
Speaker 1: Limb Policy on Netflix. Jim Jeffries being Jefferies. Edis goes
Speaker 1: for it, always funny, always delivers. Number five Justin Willman's
Speaker 1: Magic Lover on Netflix. Did you watch this one? It's
Speaker 1: a comedy show plus magic. Yeah, I know you're like, what,
Speaker 1: trust me? Watch it? Justin Wilman Magic Lover, blending magic
Speaker 1: in comedy. It works. Number six and one of these
Speaker 1: years this guy's going to top the list. This is
Speaker 1: someone in ascendency. Longtime listeners of this program know what
Speaker 1: a fan I am. We are still at the point
Speaker 1: where I can somewhat easily get him to come as
Speaker 1: a guest on this show. We'll see how long that laughs,
Speaker 1: or if he's the new Jim Gaffigan. I think he'll
Speaker 1: still come on. He's John Marcos Sareisi Thief of Joy
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Fantastic. People are noticing how good he is.
Speaker 1: I saw he as a million three followers on Facebook. Now,
Speaker 1: like I said, one of these years, he's going to
Speaker 1: be number one on the list. Number seven kind of
Speaker 1: under the radar came and went, but I watched it
Speaker 1: and it was really good, and it was someone who
Speaker 1: had something to say. Moe Amer's Wild World on Netflix
Speaker 1: even did a bit of a Carlin esque thing at
Speaker 1: the end there. Really like that one a lot. On
Speaker 1: number eight. One of my favorite working comedians these days,
Speaker 1: Dusty Slay's Wet Heats, also from Netflix, quote unquote Southern comedy, working, clean,
Speaker 1: shucking jokes, love Dusty Number nine Netflix again. Bert Kreischer
Speaker 1: is lucky, Bert being Bert. Take your shirt off, tell
Speaker 1: a couple fun stories, be chartismatic. My note on this
Speaker 1: was just funny. Sometimes you don't have to overthink the comedy,
Speaker 1: specially you come right down the middle. Burt Kreischer knows
Speaker 1: what his fans want, he delivers. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Number ten Brett Goldstein for the second best night of
Speaker 1: your life. That's nominated for a Golden Globe. You might
Speaker 1: be like the guy from ted Lasso. He's good at
Speaker 1: stand up. Yeah, he's good at stand up. Number eleven
Speaker 1: Michelle Wolf's The Well Netflix Again. I have in my
Speaker 1: notes here not hilarious, but, as I'm always say, for
Speaker 1: this next bunch of specials, good company. Enjoyed just staring
Speaker 1: at it and having my brain tickled. I wasn't like
Speaker 1: ah for an hour, but I thought that was really good.
Speaker 1: That's my number eleven special Michelle Wolf At twelve Sarah
Speaker 1: Silverman's post Mortem, also on Netflix. Netflix had a hell
Speaker 1: of a year here, very thoughtful comedy, which is a
Speaker 1: weird thing to say. I really enjoyed spending an hour
Speaker 1: on the couch with Era, so to speak, very very enjoyable.
Speaker 1: All right. One night when I was diving around Netflix,
Speaker 1: I came across Matt McCusker's Humble Offering and I wrote,
Speaker 1: poor Man Sheen gillis. Yeah, maybe, but the special works.
Speaker 1: The audio could be better. This is a little bit homebrew,
Speaker 1: but the material lands. Number fourteen, our first Hulu special,
Speaker 1: Mateo Lane's Al Dente, same note as I'm a one
Speaker 1: trick pony, I wrote, maybe not hilarious, but Mateolane is
Speaker 1: a nice company for an hour and sometimes that's enough.
Speaker 1: And number fifteen the last of the top tier specials,
Speaker 1: Tim Dillon's I'm Your Mother. If you like this podcast,
Speaker 1: you'll like this special. If you don't like Tim Dillon's podcast,
Speaker 1: you won't. Simple as that, take a break here and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about the middle tiers. We take a
Speaker 1: look at Johnny Max's top twenty five comedy specials of
Speaker 1: the year, not including the five that didn't come out yet.
Speaker 1: Earlier I said there was that top three of Marin
Speaker 1: Hart and Rife, and then a bit of a gap.
Speaker 1: Then I had the rest of my top tier. This
Speaker 1: is the middle tier. This is still the top twenty five,
Speaker 1: but these aren't quite on par with everything that came before.
Speaker 1: The commercial break. Number sixteen special of the year, Mike
Speaker 1: Kaplan's Reenie. You'll find that on YouTube. Clever writing, clever execution,
Speaker 1: definitely worth your time. Seventeen Hulu again, Chinado Unaka's LOL
Speaker 1: Live that's a part of the Kevin Hart Brand. Nice
Speaker 1: debut special, Very funny eighteen Drad Carmichaels Don't Be Gay
Speaker 1: on HBO and here's the thing. For twenty minutes, it's
Speaker 1: brilliant Carmichael at his best. Then it kind of gets tired.
Speaker 1: This is a talented storyteller with something to say, but
Speaker 1: it just doesn't land. And after like twenty minutes, I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: nineteen Roywood Juniors at your age on Hulu. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people really like this one. It's a
Speaker 1: solid pro doing solid pro work. Twenty yachtsco at Kotska's father.
Speaker 1: I think maybe I was a little disappointed in it
Speaker 1: because I loved her previous special so much. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be amazing, and it was solid, not amazing,
Speaker 1: but definitely put eyes on that. Twenty one Ian Edwards untitled. Now.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this existed. You'll fund it on
Speaker 1: YouTube until Vulture put it in their top ten. It's
Speaker 1: a nice club set. It's nothing special, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with it. There are a few individual chunks that are
Speaker 1: quite memorable, a few individual jokes that are even more memorable,
Speaker 1: But you know to compare this to some of the
Speaker 1: things higher up on the list. No way. It's a nice,
Speaker 1: solid club set, but it's the sort of thing that
Speaker 1: you'd expect to see at the Chuckle Hut on Thursday
Speaker 1: night at the Late Show, not if you went to
Speaker 1: the arena and if he and Edwards handed that in,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Arii Shafeer America's Sweetheart on Netflix.
Speaker 1: A lot of people really like that one. I just
Speaker 1: couldn't connect with it. Wasn't digging it. It was okay.
Speaker 1: And I'm starting to pull teeth a little bit here.
Speaker 1: This was not the strongest year for comedy specials. Twenty
Speaker 1: three Gabriel Iglesias Legend of Fluffy from Netflix back in January.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. It's an hour forty one. I can't
Speaker 1: I have comedy add I can't watch one guy for
Speaker 1: an hour and forty one minutes. No way, Gabe is funny,
Speaker 1: but this needed editing. Hey Gabe, maybe this was two
Speaker 1: really good fifty minute specials. I don't know why they
Speaker 1: went an hour forty one. He too much. Number twenty
Speaker 1: four Mike Birbiglia is The Good Life on Netflix. My note,
Speaker 1: civilians will like it Bverbiglia does his storytelling thing well,
Speaker 1: it's well crafted, it's a good version of what it
Speaker 1: sets out to be. Just not my cup of tea,
Speaker 1: but I understand the civilians like it. Twenty four is
Speaker 1: Mike Burbigulia running out the top twenty five. Jessica cursons,
Speaker 1: I'm the man, hilarious, same note, civilians are gonna like this.
Speaker 1: It's fine. I'm a comedy snob. It's fine. Some others
Speaker 1: that were on par with that, but I had a
Speaker 1: hand in a top twenty five, not a top twenty
Speaker 1: eight for the Publicist. So you can rank these twenty six, seven,
Speaker 1: and eight however you want, but these are among the
Speaker 1: better specials of the year. Larry the Cable Guys It's
Speaker 1: a Gift on Amazon. Cable guy knows what you want
Speaker 1: and cable Guy gets here done. Kathleen Madigan The Family
Speaker 1: Threat on Amazon. Kathleen is a pro, always hilarious, always
Speaker 1: puts a smile on your face. And Leanne Morgan's Unspeakable
Speaker 1: Things on Netflix, totally fine comedy stobbing me went, yep,
Speaker 1: this is good, but it's just not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1: So you know I got it. Her audience loves her.
Speaker 1: I'm not her audience. That's all fine. So those are
Speaker 1: Johnny max twenty five best stand up specials of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five so far, not including the ones that aren't
Speaker 1: rut yet. Tomorrow we'll take a look at six of
Speaker 1: the funniest things of the year there weren't stand up specials,
Speaker 1: and I'll fly down what didn't make the list, and
Speaker 1: i will comment on the Golden Globes and nominations and
Speaker 1: meet you back here tomorrow