Episode #77: Ryan McDonough

At America’s biggest sporting events, Ryan McDonough is there on the sidelines, getting the party started and keeping it going. The Super Bowl. Daytona 500. The Final Four. The Rose Bowl. Ryan’s there. As McShowoff. Ryan and I played college football together.

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After graduation, Ryan went to New York City where he realized his future wasn’t in finance, but in jumpstarting his own career as a party catalyst. John Hodgman profiled his days and nights as “Cuervo Man” for a 2002 radio piece on This American Life. Hollywood wanted to develop a movie about him. That stalled. But Ryan has written his own short film fictionalizing a slice of his childhood, Last Night in Rozzie, which co-stars another of our college classmates, Mark Feuerstein.

Ryan tells me all about it, from an early self-made gig for the Dallas Cowboys through an awkward interview with porn star Stormy Daniels for Sprint’s Super Bowl mobile coverage, and his recent Rose Bowl emceeing which included a shout-out to and from documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.

So let’s get to it!

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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