Speaker 1: Callaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news
Speaker 2: and daily briefing on stand up comedy comedians in the
Speaker 2: comedy industry. A phraeze that apparently if you stop saying,
Speaker 2: your Spotify numbers go down. Apparently that phrase works, And
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try and keep it light today. I'm looking
Speaker 2: ahead to tomorrow's script. I'm gonna dive in tomorrow about
Speaker 2: Andrew Schultz a little bit. So tomorrow's gonna get a
Speaker 2: little political. I'll keep it silly today. I want to
Speaker 2: dive into this Kermit gait. Have you heard Kermit the
Speaker 2: Frog's current voice. We got a whole problem with that.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that in a second. Briefly political, you
Speaker 2: know this Epstein stuff is pretty serious when Jimmy Fallon
Speaker 2: is cracking jokes about it. Fallon said, well, guys. The
Speaker 2: fallout from the latest Epstein files release continues, and President
Speaker 2: Trump's Justice Department said that it's not a crime to
Speaker 2: party with Epstein. Falon said, did years to come up
Speaker 2: with an excuse, and that's what you went with. If
Speaker 2: someone said that to you, what a super Bowl party?
Speaker 2: And slowly back away and call the police fallent again
Speaker 2: in a Trump impression, said partying with Epstein doesn't make
Speaker 2: me a criminal. The thirty four criminal convictions do fallen
Speaker 2: s data, and this one's a little hacky, but on point. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They said it's not a crime to party with Jeffrey Epstein,
Speaker 2: which is pretty much like saying it's not a crime
Speaker 2: enough brunch with Jeffrey Dahmer. Jimmy Kimmel said, that's right.
Speaker 2: It's also not a crime to borrow a bottle of
Speaker 2: baby oil from Diddy. Our first story today, I'm doing cold.
Speaker 2: I came down to the studio right around noon and
Speaker 2: check my phone and I had a note from one
Speaker 2: of the listeners who told me I might want to
Speaker 2: check out Bill Burr's Facebook page, and I'm like, hmm,
Speaker 2: I'm intrigued. Well, it seems here that Bill Burr has
Speaker 2: announced some dates he'll be playing some shows, and I
Speaker 2: was told to check out the comments section. Let's see
Speaker 2: common number one, how many Saudi princesses will be there
Speaker 2: for the show bill Someone posted Bill Burrd did the math.
Speaker 2: I figured it would be worth losing ten million dollars
Speaker 2: to make one million dollars. Dennis posted, sure, hope they
Speaker 2: have a Chili's near these venues. That's very good, Dennis
Speaker 2: for the win there. Peter, after he did his free
Speaker 2: Luigi on a chat show, a call was made and
Speaker 2: he hasn't been the same since. Dave went with bonesaw
Speaker 2: Bill coming at you get your tickets. Ray wrote, I'll
Speaker 2: bring my Saudi funded nine to eleven shirt. Liam called
Speaker 2: him the Prince Harry of comedy. I like that one,
Speaker 2: and Matt went with Texas Are you sure? Bill Burr
Speaker 2: may have had the worst year of any of the
Speaker 2: comedians of twenty twenty five. Our big topic today is
Speaker 2: Kermit Gate. I can't decide if this is either going
Speaker 2: to be the thing that gets more downloads than any
Speaker 2: episode I've ever done, or if I'm making a total mistake.
Speaker 2: A lot of new listeners joining on this week as
Speaker 2: I'm running some advertising. Hello new listeners, I appreciate you,
Speaker 2: hope you stick around. But this Kermit thing is bothering me.
Speaker 2: Have you seen this. There's a new Muppet show and
Speaker 2: someone is doing the voice of Kermit the Frog. I
Speaker 2: brought some audio. Let's go all the way back to
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy one. The original voice of Kermit the Frog
Speaker 2: Jim Henson. This is very early in the Kermit the
Speaker 2: Frog universe. Jim Henson, here is a guest on Dick
Speaker 2: Havevitt's TV show. I just want to share this with
Speaker 2: you quickly, and I want you to remember this when
Speaker 2: we get around to Kermit the Frog on Jimmy Kimmel's
Speaker 2: show some forty five years later. But here's Jim Henson
Speaker 2: performing Kermit the Frog.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, hi, oh yeah, well how do you do?
Speaker 1: It's nice to be here, you know, and hello out
Speaker 1: thereon you left. But he's his whole body has changed
Speaker 1: a great deal since you know, the early one. Why
Speaker 1: did it change? Is it a matter of diet or yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's not really diet. No, same matter of progressing,
Speaker 1: you know, in the direction of you know, better looking frogs.
Speaker 1: I suppose.
Speaker 2: Get a little bit more modern. This is the Kermit
Speaker 2: the Frog in your head if you were of a
Speaker 2: certain age, say fifty six years old, recording a podcast
Speaker 2: in your basement. This is what Kermit the Frog sounds like.
Speaker 2: This from the nineteen eighty six oscars I Got I
Speaker 2: Got You?
Speaker 1: Yes, Unless or not. Animated short films weave their magic
Speaker 1: unrestrained by the limitations of human actors.
Speaker 3: True, an animated character can defy the laws of gravity.
Speaker 1: Mmmm, move from place to place without regard to space
Speaker 1: or time.
Speaker 3: Woo, and continue to amuse generation after generation without growing
Speaker 3: older or asking for a raise.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In short, and we are animated characters, and these
Speaker 1: short films, they appear and can do absolutely anything the
Speaker 1: imagination can conjure.
Speaker 2: Sadly, Jim Henson passed away in nineteen ninety, Kermit the
Speaker 2: Frog did not. Kermit was voiced by others. And I'll
Speaker 2: get back to that. Here is two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: S it's a very very Muppet Christmas movie. And this
Speaker 2: still kind of sounds like Kermit the Frog. Jay, I
Speaker 2: could sure do with a little star power around your triumph.
Speaker 2: Here's any way you can help me out. Muppet movies
Speaker 2: are always debased.
Speaker 4: You mean, not for me to pop on.
Speaker 2: Right right? You got me again? Uh huh, bye bye.
Speaker 2: And now here's Kermit the Frog in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: Listen to this disaster, and I will say to you,
Speaker 2: as a master of half ass impressions, most people's half
Speaker 2: asked Kermit is better than what you're about to hear.
Speaker 2: If I walked up to you right now, and said,
Speaker 2: do Kermit the frog. Your kermit would be better than
Speaker 2: this one. I don't have a kermit. I know I
Speaker 2: have all my half assed impressions, but I don't do
Speaker 2: a kermit. I'm not attempting a kermit. You cannot bully
Speaker 2: me into doing a kermit. Unless you want to come
Speaker 2: to the brewery and buy me a couple beverages. Then maybe,
Speaker 2: but I'm not doing a half ass kermit for you now.
Speaker 2: If you want to hear a half asked kermit, here
Speaker 2: is official Kermit twenty twenty six, speaking with Jimmy Kimmel.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: It's great to have you, and I'm excited about the
Speaker 4: new project. Wondering how this happened or like you, was
Speaker 4: it difficult to get the other muppets together to come back?
Speaker 3: No, no, not at all, okay, I knowing you know what.
Speaker 3: They couldn't wait to do them up at you again.
Speaker 3: But then again, there's not a big demand for a
Speaker 3: pig who sings, ain't bear who tells jokes, and a
Speaker 3: bunch of dancing raps soue.
Speaker 4: Okay that's there now. What were they doing though? During
Speaker 4: all this time? What were the other muppets up to.
Speaker 3: Oh, well, not much involving a bait check. But you know,
Speaker 3: I was trying to get the special off the ground,
Speaker 3: which you know, it took a while. Jimmy. You know,
Speaker 3: it turns out that a lot of people in Hollywood
Speaker 3: say yes when they actually mean no.
Speaker 4: I have experienced that myself, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: But you know, as far as the others go, Miss Piggy,
Speaker 3: she was on vocal rest, which actually we were all
Speaker 3: kind of okay with.
Speaker 2: That is unacceptable. They need to do something about that.
Speaker 2: The New Muppet Show is out. The Guardian watched it.
Speaker 2: They gave it three stores out of five. Their subheadlines says,
Speaker 2: this story half hour anniversary special captures the spirit of
Speaker 2: the original TV show at points, but Kermit's voice takes
Speaker 2: him getting used to. It's the fiftieth anniversary of the
Speaker 2: Muppet Show. Disney, which now controls of the Muppet Show,
Speaker 2: got the old gang back together and added guest appearances
Speaker 2: from Suprise a Carpenter, Seth Rogan, who happens to be
Speaker 2: the executive producer, and Maya Roodolph for a one off
Speaker 2: half hour special. The Guardian writes, God bless everyone involved.
Speaker 2: They've tried. You can feel it. They want to make
Speaker 2: it good for us. They know we deserve it, They
Speaker 2: know everybody at the moment desperately needs a brief, shining
Speaker 2: moment out of the darkness. But as Thomas Wolf so
Speaker 2: rightly said, you can't go home again. Look, it's fine
Speaker 2: if you've never seen the original. It's probably even good
Speaker 2: if you have. There are still moments that tease it
Speaker 2: taste and memory. But the bits in between their drab
Speaker 2: the script, including and most obviously Statler and Waldorf's heckles,
Speaker 2: is begging for a polish Is this despite the half
Speaker 2: centuries notice they had a rush job, Or has the
Speaker 2: show's time simply passed and no one can carry off
Speaker 2: exuberant silliness anymore. Well, let's get to the point of
Speaker 2: today's podcast. There does remain the nagging problem of Kermit's
Speaker 2: voice Your Mind is Henson played until nineteen ninety. Veteran
Speaker 2: muppeteer at Steve Whitmyer inherited the role and played it
Speaker 2: until he was dismissed by Disney for what they can
Speaker 2: called quote unacceptable business conduct. Matt Vogel now plays the character,
Speaker 2: and our dearest Frog sounds jurrently different to anyone born
Speaker 2: before Vogel's tenure. It puts the magic even further out
Speaker 2: of reach, but maybe only to us and we've had
Speaker 2: our time. You'll find all this on Disney Plus now.
Speaker 2: Steve Whittmeyer, who was the second voice of Kermit the Frog,
Speaker 2: has a blog. Steve wrote, Kermit as Jim created him
Speaker 2: contains years of depth and growth without default attention to that.
Speaker 2: Do you really believe it's Kermit just because it looks
Speaker 2: like him? Kermit is at the top of the Muppet pyramid,
Speaker 2: the spoke in the middle of the Muppet wheel around
Speaker 2: which all things Muppet revolve, and without Kermit being fully intact,
Speaker 2: there is no future for the Muppets, no new directions,
Speaker 2: no exploitative reboots, nothing that nurtures the historical connection to you,
Speaker 2: the audience. That connection as it was originally established, is vital.
Speaker 2: Whitmeyer continues viewing the Muppets primarily as rolls began as
Speaker 2: soon as Jim was gone and altered the perception from
Speaker 2: seeing them as individual entered who exist on our own
Speaker 2: world to being a corporate owned puppet character franchise with
Speaker 2: people hired to play them skipping ahead. Corporate thinking goes
Speaker 2: that all the years of interior development done by an
Speaker 2: originator can be replaced by simply auditioning someone who could
Speaker 2: lip sync approximated voice and focus the eyes, even if
Speaker 2: that person has no true understanding of the reasons behind
Speaker 2: why the world has a solid and loving connection with
Speaker 2: the character. But I want you to know, from day
Speaker 2: one throughout nearly three decades, not once did I ever
Speaker 2: have the notion to make Kermit my own. On the contrary,
Speaker 2: was absolutely vital to my process to make certain that
Speaker 2: any egotistical notion of marking territory never happen, so that
Speaker 2: Kermit remained based solely upon Jim's foundational original Kermit Gate Everybody,
Speaker 2: I love it. Dave Chappelle and John Stewart will appear
Speaker 2: together at a benefit for Yellow Springs Radio Station WYSO.
Speaker 2: This benefit February thirteenth, that's like a week from now.
Speaker 2: The general manager of the radio station says, we see
Speaker 2: them as aligned, even though they're very different. They're two
Speaker 2: of the most important voices calling out how dangerous it
Speaker 2: is that First Amendment rights are being trampled, that we're
Speaker 2: seeing censorship of important voices and legacy media capitulating to
Speaker 2: the Trump administration. We are told the evening with Chappelle
Speaker 2: and Stewart will have a talk show Vibe. The GM
Speaker 2: said Chappelle has a list of friends he likes to
Speaker 2: collaborate with, and John Stewart is on the list. In
Speaker 2: John said yes immediately. Jimmy Kimmel told his viewers during
Speaker 2: one of his monologues this week that he will demand
Speaker 2: to host the Oscars in twenty twenty seven if Milania
Speaker 2: ends up nominated in Best Documentary category. He said, mark
Speaker 2: my words right now, if Malania gets nominated for an Oscar,
Speaker 2: I will host that show. Whether they asked me to
Speaker 2: or not, I will insist on it. We'll let Conan know.
Speaker 2: Bobby Slayton is in the Epstein files. This from Syracuse
Speaker 2: dot Com, who report Bobby Slayton was regularly sending messages
Speaker 2: with Jeffrey Epstein. According to screenshots of text messages and emails,
Speaker 2: Bobby Slayton's name appears in more than two thousand documents.
Speaker 2: I've done two thousand episodes of this podcast. I think
Speaker 2: I've mentioned Bobby Slayton twice, including dis mention some of
Speaker 2: the correspondents. Thanks Jeffrey Epstein for letting Bobby Slayton stay
Speaker 2: at a New York City apartment while on tour. Now
Speaker 2: this caught the attention of Syracuse dot com, not for
Speaker 2: the reasons you're thinking. Apparently upstate New York sticks up
Speaker 2: for itself. They are focused on September twenty fourteen correspondence
Speaker 2: in which Slayton wrote, wish I was in NYC having
Speaker 2: dinner with you and Woody in Rochester in the depths
Speaker 2: of comedy hell send Woodman my best. We are getting
Speaker 2: along here, but I left myself a note here that says,
Speaker 2: don't bump these next two stories. So okay, Johnny Mack
Speaker 2: from the past, I won't. Craig Ferguson was talking about
Speaker 2: his podcast and says he'll still do interviews, but only
Speaker 2: if they're in person. Ferguson explains, I think I'm probably
Speaker 2: as good as anyone who does zoom call interviews, but
Speaker 2: in person, I think maybe I'm a little better than
Speaker 2: most people who do it. So I kind of feel
Speaker 2: like played your strength. I enjoy it much more when
Speaker 2: you're in a room talking with someone. So what I
Speaker 2: do now with the podcast is if I'm away on work,
Speaker 2: I'll just record a half hour of me answering questions
Speaker 2: from people who watch the podcast, and then that's the podcast.
Speaker 2: If I can't have a guest in the studio, and
Speaker 2: I'll just talk directly the people who watch it. Craig's
Speaker 2: tour begins today. See that's why I can't bump. The
Speaker 2: story begins today in Charlotte, North Carolina. The tour is
Speaker 2: called Pants on Fire. He's not sure if he'll make
Speaker 2: it a special. Craig says, I don't know if I
Speaker 2: want to make any more stand up specials. I made
Speaker 2: one a couple years ago and it turned out okay,
Speaker 2: and I was happy with it. But the thing is
Speaker 2: about making special I always think you do it, and
Speaker 2: then if you ever look at it later, you go, ah,
Speaker 2: I could have made that better by doing that. Jay Leno,
Speaker 2: who some think is the worst person who ever lived,
Speaker 2: Craig did not comment on that or not. Jay Leno
Speaker 2: has never made a stand up special in fifty years,
Speaker 2: and I don't think he ever will. I kind of
Speaker 2: get it. I like the doing of stand up. I
Speaker 2: don't know that I need to film it. Maybe I will,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I hope somebody jokes aside. I hope
Speaker 2: somebody has at least captured some jay Leno material, so
Speaker 2: that someday, one hundred years from now we could see
Speaker 2: what a jay Leno concert look like. Here's another story
Speaker 2: that passed. Johnny Max says, I'm not allowed to bump.
Speaker 2: British comedians Rob Beckett and Remesh Waggonnathan have tried their
Speaker 2: hands at Bob's letting with Team Great Britain. Yes, it's
Speaker 2: the Robin Ramesh first Team GB Winter Special in that
Speaker 2: the comedians squeeze into Bob's lay suits as they get
Speaker 2: a taste of life in Bob's lay. The two part
Speaker 2: special follows them in search of their very own winter sport.
Speaker 2: I have this dream that someday I'm going to hit
Speaker 2: up the Republic of Ireland and see if me and
Speaker 2: some friends of mine can be their beach volleyball team.
Speaker 2: I haven't done anything about this, but someday I will.
Speaker 2: Lance Corporal Taylor Lawrence, who was training for second Olympics,
Speaker 2: posted about the experience on social media. He said filming
Speaker 2: with SkyTV and Rob Beckett and Ramesh Reagon Ethan was
Speaker 2: a lot of fun, although I don't think they should
Speaker 2: give up their day jobs. Great guys to be around,
Speaker 2: and jumped in with both feet. I see what you
Speaker 2: did there, bumping a lot of stories on the fly today.
Speaker 2: It's always good when that happens. That makes me happy.
Speaker 2: Tomorrow's show, like I said, we'll get into the Ander
Speaker 2: Schultz of it all a little bit. Then. Of course,
Speaker 2: it's Friday, so Comedy stock Market. Saturday will be the
Speaker 2: super Bowl preview. A lot of comedians doing commercials. I'll
Speaker 2: talk about that someday. I have a fantastic interview with
Speaker 2: comedian Ismo. Ismo will be playing the Just for Last
Speaker 2: Vancouver Comedy Festival. I had a lovely half hour conversation
Speaker 2: with him the other day, So that'll be Sunday's episode.
Speaker 2: Looking ahead to Vancouver. Friend of the show Mike Chisholm,
Speaker 2: you know him from the Letterman podcast. He's going to
Speaker 2: act as the Vancouver correspondent. The nice folks at Just
Speaker 2: for Laughs hooked Mike up with some tickets. He's going
Speaker 2: to hit some shows and report back to us. Plus
Speaker 2: he's going to see David Letterman. And I told Mike
Speaker 2: if he can come up with a David Letterman interview,
Speaker 2: I will send him one Canadian dollar via Venmo. Get
Speaker 2: it done, Mike. It's been such a busy week. I
Speaker 2: really haven't commented too much on Comedy Survivor. Now, if
Speaker 2: you're a new listener, we're playing Comedy Survivor. We put
Speaker 2: sixteen comedians on Comedy Island, and each week the listeners
Speaker 2: are voting off one comedian. What you do is you
Speaker 2: go to the Daily Comedy News podcast group. You'll find
Speaker 2: a picture. This week's picture is me extinguishing the torch
Speaker 2: of Ron White, and I love that. The listeners are like, hey,
Speaker 2: you should have had Ron have a cigarette, or you
Speaker 2: should ad him some potato salad, and like, Okay, I
Speaker 2: don't know how much time you guys think I spend
Speaker 2: on these bits. Voting ends at end of day today
Speaker 2: so I can record the episodes on Friday. The results
Speaker 2: of Comedy Survivor come out Monday's at noon. Easter. And
Speaker 2: let me just skim here and just see how things
Speaker 2: are trending. I see one vote for somebody whose name
Speaker 2: hasn't come up before. H This seems to be a
Speaker 2: couple of votes for Jay Leno. Leslie Jones' name seems
Speaker 2: to be yours. I scrolled down. Okay, looks like it's
Speaker 2: a tight one. Some people are hanging back to see
Speaker 2: which way. The group is going to see if they
Speaker 2: can help vote someone out or perhaps steer the conversation
Speaker 2: away from someone they don't want to vote it out.
Speaker 2: Very fascinating. Comedy Survivor. Go to the Facebook group Daily
Speaker 2: Comedy News podcast group. Write down the name of somebody
Speaker 2: you want off. Please make it super crystal clear so
Speaker 2: I don't write like I was kind of thinking maybe
Speaker 2: somehow I'll vote off Joshmo. Let's just write Joshmo out
Speaker 2: that way. It's nice and easy. We don't need a
Speaker 2: controversy over Comedy Survivor. The last thing I want to
Speaker 2: get is like a note from Dylan in the Facebook
Speaker 2: group on the side, be like, hey, bro, you said
Speaker 2: Schmoe had six votes, it's actually seven. I think we've got.
Speaker 2: That's a last thing I want for this bit. This
Speaker 2: has kind of scary From Reuters, a Russian stand up
Speaker 2: comedian was convicted of inciting hatred and jailed for nearly
Speaker 2: six years. This over a joke the comedian made about
Speaker 2: a legless war veteran Artemi a stan. It has been
Speaker 2: sentenced for five years and nine months, also fined three
Speaker 2: hundred thousand rubles that's around thirty nine hundred dollars. I'm
Speaker 2: no expert on the law, but it seems to me
Speaker 2: like the fine and the jail time are very out
Speaker 2: of sync. Astanin was also convicted of offending the feelings
Speaker 2: of Christians with an off color joke he made about Jesus,
Speaker 2: which angered Orthodox nationalists. The crux of all this show
Speaker 2: last year in March, the comedian joked about how an
Speaker 2: impoverished war veteran who had lost his legs after being
Speaker 2: blown up by a mine was now forced to get
Speaker 2: around on a skateboard, and the crux of the joke
Speaker 2: being that the veteran had run over the comedian's foot. Apparently,
Speaker 2: there is video of the joke's punchline, which shows fellow
Speaker 2: comedians remaining straight faced and the sound of several audience
Speaker 2: members laughing. A stun In tried to flee Russia last year,
Speaker 2: but was arrested by police in Belarus and returned to
Speaker 2: Moscow to face charges. He was asked by the judge
Speaker 2: on Wednesday if he understood his sentence. A stun In
Speaker 2: is quoted as saying, to hell with your judicial practice. No,
Speaker 2: I don't, and I'm gonna leave you with this one,
Speaker 2: because we could all use a laugh this week. This
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with comedy. This is just I'm
Speaker 2: on the internet all day and I'm looking up stories
Speaker 2: for this and for Palace Intrigue, the podcast I write
Speaker 2: where we cover the royal family. And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: just on the internet all day because this is just
Speaker 2: it's what I do. I saw this one again, has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with comedy, but it might make you smile.
Speaker 2: From the Daily Mail, a man sparked an evacuation at
Speaker 2: a French hospital after doctors discovered an eight inch long
Speaker 2: live World War One artillery shell in the man's rectum.
Speaker 2: That's right, the man was in the hospital. He had
Speaker 2: an eight inch World War One artillery shell in his rectum.
Speaker 2: The twenty four year old man was described as being
Speaker 2: in a state of extreme discomfort. Emergency surgery was carried
Speaker 2: out to identify the large object in the man's rectum.
Speaker 2: They figured out it was an artillery shell dating back
Speaker 2: to the First World War. But here's the money quote
Speaker 2: quote Worse still, it had not exploded, so bomb disposable
Speaker 2: experts had to be called in to diffuse the shell.
Speaker 2: With the fire brigades standing by. Explosives are no jokes.
Speaker 2: Staff and patients were evacuated from the hospital. A security
Speaker 2: perimeter set up around the accident in emergency unit. The
Speaker 2: man is set to be interviewed by police. They are
Speaker 2: investigating the charge of handling Category A munitions And here
Speaker 2: is I'm gonna read it verbatim. I'm gonna read it
Speaker 2: from the article and I'm trying not to laugh. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna just try and read this. This is from quoting
Speaker 2: directly from the Daily Mail article, and they wrapped it
Speaker 2: up with there was no I can't this is too funny. Oh,
Speaker 2: let me try again. I could edit this out, but
Speaker 2: I want you to hear that. I think here, okay
Speaker 2: from the Daily Email. The final sentence of the article
Speaker 2: is I can't. Let me have a sip of my
Speaker 2: iced coffee here, m okay, try this again, John, and
Speaker 2: I could edit this up. That's no fun There was
Speaker 2: no Oh boy, I might have to go record another
Speaker 2: episode and come back just to do this tag or
Speaker 2: have the AI do it right? Why more try. There
Speaker 2: was no initial explanation as to why the shell ended
Speaker 2: up in the man's body, but local media speculated that
Speaker 2: it might have had something to do with his social
Speaker 2: life that as she copy news for today Bye,