June 24, 2025

Andrew Schulz and the New York Times get feisty

Show Notes
Transcript

Johnny Mack covers how politics and comedy intersect with a discussion featuring Theo Von and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna on foreign affairs and AI. We also dive into a New York Times feature on comedian Andrew Schulz, exploring his rise to fame through internet stand-up clips and his controversial takes on sensitive topics.

00:17 Theo Von's Political Discussion
01:10 Andrew Schulz's Rise to Fame
04:28 Shane Gillis and the New Bro Comedy
06:28 Steph Tolev's Netflix Special
07:34 Amy Poehler's SNL Reflections
09:01 Martin Herlihy's Apple Campaign

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WEBVTT

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Kalaroga Shock Media. Hey there, Johnny mack with for Daily

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Comedy News. You know, sometimes politics and comedy do intertwine.

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This was pretty interesting on Friday before the big news

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story over the weekend, THEO Vaughn had Democratic Representative Rocana

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from California on this past weekend to discussed several topics,

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including foreign affairs and AI. At one point on this

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past weekend, Kanna promoted the War Powers Resolution, which is

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a bipartisan bill that he had introduced with a Republican

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aimed at prohibiting US armed forces from unauthorized hostilities in Iran.

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THEO Vaughn said, Yeah, people say, well, you don't know

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a ton about the Middle East, Like that's fine. I

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don't want people I know, my friends getting called up.

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I don't want the children and my friends getting called

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over to die. I don't even understand how it's an option.

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Vaughn went on to tell Kana, it feels like we're

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just working for Israel. I feel like it was supposed

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to be America first, focusing on like what what are

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we doing to get things back into America right, like

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to increase the purpose of being American, refill our hearts

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with blood and makes us feel something again here and

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make us be excited about being an American. The New

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York Times had a big profile of Andrew Schultz over

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the weekend. There's also an audio version of it. I

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think you have to go to Apple Podcasts and look

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for the conversation. I'm not sure that's not on Apple,

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but regardless, I both read it and listened to it.

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It's kind of confrontational, it's pretty interesting, so it starts

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pretty basic. The Times ask Shaltz, in the last four

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or five years, you've really blown up. What has shifted

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to the culture to naby to come to prominence? Andrews said,

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when I started posting stuff on the internet, specifically stand up,

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things changed for me. I was trying to get an

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HBO special or back in the day, Netflix or Comedy Central.

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I was trying to get anything, but I couldn't get

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any motional with stand up. So out of desperation, I

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film my own special, pitch it to everybody nobody wanted,

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and I was like, I'm going to put this online.

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At that time, there was a sensitivity, especially in corporate America,

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about edginess and joke. So my gamble was maybe if

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I put this out on YouTube, there'll be an audience

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that likes this kind of comedy. I put it out,

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A weird thing happened everybody. They only watched twenty minutes.

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So I put out a twenty minute version of it

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in the next week, and I sold out a comedy

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club the next week, and I sawd out another one.

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I was like, Wow, there's something happening over here on

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the internet that's interesting, right that people don't watch full hours.

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Maybe everybody is me that twenty minute thing that makes

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a lot of sense to me as a consumer. Times,

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you obviously have clear ideas about what works with audiences.

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Does this create a temptation to pander Schaltz? Oftentimes what

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happens is yell of an opinion that's maybe a little different,

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and you'll be rebuked for that opinion for years, and

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then people start to come around. Then the same people

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that rebuked you will start echoing those sentiments with no accountability.

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Times you said you asked democrats to be on the podcast.

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Whom do you ask who said no? Pete Boota, Judge,

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Tim Walls, Kamala Harris, and then her team lies blatantly

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lies times about what Schultz about us reaching out, and

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it's wild to blatantly lie when not only did I

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reach out, Charlemagne, who's working with them, reached out, Mark Cuban,

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who's a surrogate, reached out, and we reached out, and

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they blatantly lie. Then when people write articles about it,

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they say, Andrew says he reached out to Kamala, but

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we reached out to the Kamala people, and they say

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that never happen, and so what's the reader supposed to

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interpret that? As? It's almost like calling me a liar.

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Then the interview gets into a bunch of Trump stuff,

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which is just too political for what we're doing here

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at Daily Comedy News. You can read it, you can

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listen to Andrew himself. Then they get into Andrew's use

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of the R word and another word I don't want

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to get involved with at all. So same note, you

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can listen to that, or you can read it yourself

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in the New York Times. Then this next point from Andrew,

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I think is stupid. They're going back and forth on

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which words Andrew is comfortable with and which he's not

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comfortable with. So Schultz says, have you heard of fire retardant?

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How do you feel about that word. Times correctly, retardant

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in that context means to slow something down. Schultz, and

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this is just a stupid point, goes, Should we make

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a different word for that? Come on, dude, come on,

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just come on jumping ahead, The Times writes. A few

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days later, Andrew and I talked again. And Andrew says,

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I was thinking about a lot of things from the

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conversation so far. Yeah, you had a good question I

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thought about all week, which was you don't say the

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N word or the K word, but you'll say other words.

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I was like, I think that's true. I didn't know

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what to think of it in the moment. Then he

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brought up the R word, and how I feel comfortable

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saying that one? I really thought about it. This is

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me trying to retrofit my knee jerk feelings on it.

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I think what makes a slur bad is it's a

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descripture plus organized violence as humans were like, that's bad.

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But if we don't remember that organized violence, or aren't

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taught about it, or it's too far in the past,

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we start to feel like it's not as heavy. I

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think that's why our reaction is different when it comes

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to Latino slurs or Asian slurs. Where's the organized violence?

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Interesting piece there? The Times also had an article titled

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what does Shane Gillis want to get away? With? No

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interview with Shane there, but they're mostly talking about tires,

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and they write Gillis brought a bro comedy fan base

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and endured a quasi cancelation with his Netflix sitcom Tires.

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He's trying to map the leap from edge Lord to

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the mainstream. His big break turned into an immediate road block,

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and he went from anonymity to cause cancel Libree overnight.

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In a way, Gillis's quick cycle of a sent crash

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and rebirth allowed him to begin addressing the obstacles that

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many of the manispheres current New Bro stars now. It's

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NU with like an umlock or something, the two dots

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above the U new Bro And I think this article

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used Newbro twice. I didn't know that was a term,

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and suddenly we're using it. But okay, I don't not

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even sure what it means, but that many of the

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man of spheres current Newbro stars are heading towards. Most

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are still building creative work largely outside the moral spheres

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of mainstream Hollywood and media, hence YouTube, podcast, comedy clubs

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and so on. But blessed with both an audience and

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something of a scarlet letter, Gillis is most interested in

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finding his way back to Fame's mainstream, or perhaps to

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remake it in his mold. They describe Shane's comedy as

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an affectionate portrayal of a cockshore simpleton. Gillis manages this

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in part because of how he uses his body. Now,

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this is really smart here. I thought they nailed this here.

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When he stands now, he's six foot four and lumberjack stirty.

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He tends to bend at the neck ever so slightly

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as to slightly minimize his presence, and Gillis soft steps

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rather than pounding around, giving him an apologetic mean am

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I E N. We're using the big words today New

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York Times. Overall, he exudes a kind of soothing sand

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laeran hangtogness. Somebody got the thesaurus out for this one.

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Undoubtedly a decade or two from now, and a tour

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director will find a way to radically remake him in

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a role of great tragic empathy. Did nobody in The

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Times editorial deportmagau use some normal words, dude, what is

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this article for now? Though it's masturbation jokes and also

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gestures with tires, Gilliss appears to be aiming for a

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post liberal restoration of mainstream comedy values to somewhere in

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the late eighties with a greater dose of self awareness.

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Steph Tolev has a special add on Netflix today. It

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is called Filth Queen. Filmed in Boston. It's produced by

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Bill Burr, who told Deadline the first time I saw

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Steph Tolev was a promotion video she had made for

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New York City show. I immediately fell in love with

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her in her comedy, one of the most uninhibited original

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voices out there today. I love everything about her. Speaking

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of Burr from the Boston Globe, somebody grabbed Burr on

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the street and they asked Burr about the Karen Reid case.

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Bill said he thought everyone was lying. He was told

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Karen was acquitted, and he'd said, wow. The Netflix release

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schedule is a little light right now. So we've got

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Steph today, Nate Jackson on July eighth, virdaes we'll have

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a special on July eighteenth, this one titled Food Volume.

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There's a poster for the special, which shows Virdas holding

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a lamp in his hand. The caption reads, Indian comedy

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is not Silent, It returns with fool volume. Here are

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your guest hosts for Jimmy Kimmelive this summer. They include

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Anthony Anderson, Nicole Buyer, Alan Cumming, christ De Stefano, Fortune Fimester,

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Jelly Roll, Diego, Luna Comeil Nan Jianni this one. I

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keep making crinkly face at this and I think I

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brought it up in the Facebook group Daily Comedy News

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Podcast Group. Amy Poehler was on her podcast and like

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just decided to bear her soul and nobody was asking

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her to bear her soul. Amy said that every comedian

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who has appeared on SNLL over the years has quote

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played people that we should not have played, and quote

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the part about getting older and being in comedies you

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have to like figure it out and oh, everything has

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an expiration date. It was even on SNL fifty when

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they had that segment which was like, here's all the

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ways we got things wrong, and they showed way inappropriate

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casting for people. We all played people that we shouldn't

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have played. I misappropriated, I appropriated. I didn't know I

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don't know what to make of this. We've all done

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things in the past that were, you know, we wish

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we could do over, and you know, as somebody like

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walking around going I can't believe maybe Polar did that

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role one time, Like I don't even know what she's

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burying her soul about. And are you gonna give back

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the money or just what we're supposed to go? Oh yeah,

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that thing you did, all right, that's cool. Like, I

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don't know even know why you're bringing this up. There

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wasn't any sort of Amy polar Gate. And at some

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point comedy is making fun of things. Otherwise you're just

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doing puns and knock knock jokes. It's almost always like

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an object of the joke that is being goofed on.

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She told Will Forte on her podcast. The best thing

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you can do is make repairs, learn for your mistakes,

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do better. It's all you can do that I agree with.

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I mean, you know, we make mistakes. We don't have

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tom machines move forward, But I don't I don't know

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what this is about. It seems like some sort of

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virtual signaling to the Hollywood crowd. But Amy's at a

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point in her career she doesn't need to do that,

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so I don't get it. Late Nighter reported that Martin Hurley,

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you know him from SNL and the police don't destroy guys,

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he had started a new Apple back to school campaign. Guys,

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it's June twenty fourth. We're doing back to school already.

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It only turned ninety degrees where I live two days ago,

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and we're doing back to school. Can we just enjoy

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summer anyway? The back to school campaign was aimed at

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college bound teenagers, but the seven minutes short was quietly

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pulled from Apple's YouTube channel after one day. In the video,

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Late Nighter says Hurley, he played a fictionalized version of

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himself guiding high schoolers through the parent presentation, designed to

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help students convince their parents to buy them a MacBook.

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Apple has not explained why they took the video down,

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but apparently some people on social media called the video cringe,

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out of touch, and even manipulative. And that is your

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comedy news for today. If you would like to program

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without commercial interruption or feed drops, you can go to

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caliroga dot com, slash plus, or if you're an Apple podcast,

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click up the benner that says uninterrupted listening five buff

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next a month, that stuff goes away. If you're on Apple,

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you get a thirty day free trial, So why wouldn't

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you just try it out for thirty days? And like

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I've joked before, and I'm totally joking. You know, if

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on day thirty one you forget to cancel it and

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I get five bucks, well, hey, what do you want

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from mek you tomorrow