The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Welcome to our 100th episode together of The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First. This isn’t like the other episodes, and not just because it’s our 100th episode – I mean, is any sit-down with Doug Stanhope normal, exactly? Even though Stanhope and I haven’t sat down together in more …
Gary Gulman is the tallest funniest Jew I know, and I’ve known him personally since 2004, when he competed on seasons two and three of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Gulman went to Boston College on a football scholarship but found his goal line in stand-up comedy a few months after …
Jay Oakerson’s first TV credit was on BET. Big Jay started stand-up comedy in all-black rooms in Philadelphia, and now he’s playing to everyone while often relying on his sharp wit to riff with the crowds in the moment. He hosts an all-crowd-work series Big Jay Oakerson’s What’s Your F@#king …
Matt Balaker is writing a book about Greg Giraldo; scratch that, he’s writing THE book on Greg Giraldo, as there hasn’t been a proper biography about the outrageously witty stand-up comedian since he died in 2010 at the age of only 44. Balaker, a comedian himself, has interviewed more than …
Kevin Bartini is a stand-up comedian and writer who audiences see first when they attend tapings of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central. Bartini also has warmed up TV audiences for The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and sometimes now The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He …
At 83, Dick Gregory remains an active comedy legend, logging more than 200 stand-up gigs a year. Gregory changed the game in 1961 when he performed at Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club in Chicago, and the notoriety of becoming the first black comedian to play to white crowds led him soon thereafter …
Nick Brazao is a producer with Just for Laughs, the world’s largest international comedy festival. He has been with the company since 2009, working on all of Just for Laughs’ festivals in Montreal, Toronto, Chicago and Sydney. Nick produces the Off-JFL club and theater shows for Montreal each July, and spearheads …
Last night, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump (you voted for him) visited Jimmy Kimmel Live, where Kimmel presented a debate challenge from Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Trump said yes, but only if Sanders pays up, for charity. “If he paid a nice sum toward a charity, I would …
You may know Dan McCoy as an Emmy-winning writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central and now still writing for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, but you probably hear him more often as the producer and co-host of The Flop House podcast talking about bad …
Maz Jobrani has his first starring movie out now called Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, which he co-wrote and co-produced and calls “The Persian Pink Panther meets Borat.” He already has three Showtime comedy specials out, the latest one also the title of his best-selling book of 2015, I’m Not a Terrorist, …
