by There are so many places to see stand-up comedy on TV and online during this digital comedy boom, that it certainly has become difficult to know what credits even matter any longer.
As Grant Pardee notes in a piece today for Paste Magazine:
“It was funny to see Madonna perform stand-up on The Tonight Show last Thursday—not because of the set itself, but because you couldn’t ask for a clearer symbol of the status of stand-up in late night: The Tonight Show, once a breaking ground for emerging comedians, would rather have a celebrity goofing around than book a legitimate, if lesser-known, comic. Of course, one of those is far more likely to grab BuzzFeed headlines and YouTube clicks the next day.”
We’re no longer living in a world in which Johnny Carson’s thumbs up makes or breaks a stand-up comedian’s career.
Perhaps nobody has that kind of legitimacy in 2015, that ability to put a singular stamp of approval on you that sets you for a lifetime of joke-telling.
But at least Conan O’Brien still dedicates a consistent portion of his late-night TBS show to stand-up. In Pardee’s piece, “Conan O’Brien: Stand-up’s Best Friend in Late Night,” he speaks with Conan comedy booker J.P. Buck as well as past Conan performers Solomon Georgio, Adam Cayton-Holland, Cristela Alonzo, Aparna Nancherla, Rory Scovel, Jon Dore, Allen Strickland Williams, and Jackie Kashian. Also mentioned: Deon Cole, Marc Maron, Tig Notaro, Chris Fairbanks, Pete Holmes, Joe Zimmerman, Amy Schumer and Bill Burr.
