Comedy Deep Dive - Sebastian Maniscalco: the Wheels Are Wobbling

0:03 Kalaroga Shark Media. From 1998 to 2005, if you had breakfast at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, there's a decent chance your waiter was Sebastian Maniscalco. He did the job for seven years. He'd work the dining room during the day, carrying eggs to agents and movie stars, and at night he'd go do open mics in bars and bowling alleys for nobody. Last year, Sebastian Maniscalco was the number three touring comedian in the country behind only controversial MAGA comedian Nate Bregazzi and Kevin Hart. Hi, I'm Johnny Mac, and with today's Daily Comedy News Saturday Deep Dive, we are talking Sebastian Maniscalco.

0:44 Sebastian was born in 1973 in Arlington Heights, Illinois. His father, Salvatore, came over from Sicily at 15 and became a hairstylist. His mother was a secretary. Sebastian was an altar boy. He went to Northern Illinois University, was president of his frat, and got a communications degree in 1995. Hey, we could have been co-workers at the radio station or something, or You might be hosting a podcast in your basement like a loser. People do that. He's not a damaged kid who found the stage. He comes across as a guy from a strict, loud, old school family who can't believe how everybody else was raised. He moved to L.A. in 98 and got the job at the Four Seasons. So I pretty much know of every celebrity's tipping habits working at the Four Seasons.

1:25 And what do we got? Shaq's the best. What does Shaq do? Shaq come in on a Sunday by himself, walk through the bar. He used to sit by himself. This is not every Sunday, but a few. Order a fruit plate. A little, what else did he have? Oh, coffee. But I used to serve the coffee to him in a big cappuccino cup because. It's like serving a giant. I could serve him a little teacup. Bring out the big cappuccino. And he would never ask for a check, just left $ 100 under the plate. Every time. He's told the story many times of asking to leave a shift early to do a set, running down to the comedy store and then running back to finish serving.

2:09 He became a regular at the comedy store in 2005, which was the year he finally quit the hotel. You know, to me, that feels like five minutes ago. Then I do the math and I'm like, oh, yeah, 2005 has been a minute. Sebastian's first real exposure came from Vince Vaughn, who picked four unknown comics for a thing called the Wild West Comedy Show, which again, I feel like was yesterday. Wow, that went fast. 30 cities and 30 nights on a bus, and Vince made a documentary out of it. Sebastian was one of the four comedians. Here's the deal. This guy, yep, that's big-time movie star Vince Vaughn, got an insane idea one night to take four up-and-coming comics, that's them, and do 30 live shows in 30 nights while traveling 6,000 miles across America on a bus. And they made a movie. Crazy, right? Um, you could say that.

3:00 So. Who are these guys? I always want to hear Sebastian's perspective on things because it's so funny. Yeah, they're at the health club. These people with the iPod strapped to their bicep. It's my pod. You know, just the smallest thing can really make him outraged, and he's just so offended by it. I walk into the club, and the iPod people are like this. Look at this. Look at this guy. Look at this guy. He's got a CD player he's got. Oh, God. Look at him search. My act is kind of like observational type of humor. My point of view is very kind of disgusted with human behavior and how they conduct themselves in public.

3:45 He's the king of personal hygiene. If you didn't take a shower, don't stand around him. His whole persona is like amazed that somebody has the audacity to roll out of bed, not take a shower, and they're in the food section at the grocery store. I don't care what people think. Well, I'm uncomfortable that you're comfortable. Shower. I pinched myself every day I was on that tour because in this business, you never know when it's going to happen again, if it's going to happen again. So every day I felt like this was it. Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, coming to theaters February 8th.

4:32 His first special, Sebastian Live, came out in 2009. Then he did three for Showtime. 2012's What's Wrong With People? Which I think I have in my mind as What's Wrong With You People? Have I been reading that wrong and adding a word all these years? 2014's Aren't You Embarrassed? and 2016's Why Would You Do That? If you look at those titles, that's pretty much the whole act. He said it took him close to 20 years to work out his voice, and he compares it to lifting weights, where you don't walk into the gym on day one as a bodybuilder. He wasn't an overnight anything. He was 45 before most people knew who he was. Most of the act is physical. He doesn't stand at the mic and tell you about the guy at the airport. He becomes the guy at the airport with the walk and the face and the whole body. He kicks his leg back, he throws his arms around, he does a strut. The material is about his father, his wife's family, and people behaving in public in ways his father would have smacked him for. He lists his influences as Don Rickles, Johnny Carson, Dice, Seinfeld, Brian Regan, and John Ritter. John Ritter might be the most telling name on there because John Ritter was also a physical comedian. What matters just as much is what he doesn't do. He's not political and he's not filthy.

5:35 He doesn't have a take on the news. He's not part of the Austin scene. Not really a critic's favorite. And these days, not his fellow comedian's favorite either. We'll get to that. You can bring your parents. You can bring your kids. We did an episode on Nate a while back. It's a similar lane. There's a huge audience in this country that wants to laugh for 90 minutes without being lectured or embarrassed. And for a long time, almost nobody in comedy was serving it. Now, if you look at the top of the charts, look who's up there. That audience showed up. In 2018, a memoir called Stay Hungry, the Netflix special the same name, January of that year, taped at Radio City. He played Madison Square Garden. He hosted the MTV Video Music Awards. Listen, I didn't mean to come out to a cloud of smoke, but backstage, my mother's frying zucchini. It's not really her fault. She's making it for 20,000 people tonight.

6:32 So we crack the window and hopefully this all clear out for the Devil's Home Opener. Welcome to the 2019 VMAs. My name is Sebastian Maniscalco. And I'm gonna be your host tonight. Man, what a night. We're celebrating music the way it always was intended. In a hockey rink, In the middle of Newark. Another Netflix special in 2022. And then last year, a hilarious special called It Ain't Right. Hollywood came calling. He had a small part in Green Book. Then Martin Scorsese cast him as crazy Joe Gallo in The Irishman. Opposite Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. Not bad.

7:22 I waited on Robert De Niro. I waited on Al Pacino, who I subsequently worked with. You know, 25 years later, which was, you know. Did he remember you from the 4Z? No, no, no. Again, I didn't go there and, hey, I'm an actor. I'm trying to get, I'm a comedian. I just did my job. I was very polite. I didn't, like, sneak my way into, like, letting them know I was in the entertainment business. It was actually against company policy to, like, tell these people what you were actually doing. In 2023, Sebastian co-wrote and starred in About My Father, a movie based on his own life with Robert De Niro playing Salvatore the hairdresser. I just wish you hadn't used my bowls.

8:04 Well, you know, I used your bowls, Doug, because I wanted to add a special spiritual reverberation. To the meal, so that's why. So thank you for that contribution. Salvo, it's delicious. Listen, given everything you're doing for my son, this is the least I can do. And I just wanna say something that my father used to say. The translation is the family isn't just one important thing, it's everything. And I like to toast to that. Lovely. Salute. Salute. To everything. Time for some more vino, huh? Oh, yes. When in Rome.

8:44 Because, you know, you guys are Italian. You got a problem with Italian smell? Yeah, Bill. I thought he was serious. And then the sign that you've made it. Saturday Night Live starts making fun of you. Last November, Marcelo Hernandez, who does two things well, one of which is playing Sebastian Maniscalco in sketches. You're not going to believe it. I'm driving my car, and I got the stick.

9:30 Shift going, and then the traffic was on another level. Okay, and then this genius cuts me off, and I'm like, why would you do that? Sebastian handled it about as well as you can. He said he was flattered. He presented at the Critics' Choice Awards alongside Marcelo Hernandez, and he's openly campaigning to host the show. His one note was that the wig was too white. So as recently as like 18 months ago, the story on Sebastian Maniscal was simple. He was a guy who waited tables for seven years, built it slowly, and was now one of the three biggest draws in comedy with no enemies to speak of. But there's always part two of today's podcast.

10:13 Listen up to all my friends in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I am making my return after a 16-year hiatus to the Riyadh Comedy Festival, one of the biggest comedy festivals. In the world. Mark your calendars, September 26th through October 9th. This is going to be big. For Sebastian, the wobble started in September of 25 with the Riyadh Comedy Festival. You remember this one? We've talked about it a lot. The Saudi government put on a two-week comedy festival and paid a bunch of American comics to play it. Human Rights Watch said the government was using the event to whitewash its record, and a lot of comics who didn't go had plenty to say about the ones who did. Sebastian wasn't the face of the festival, he wasn't the guy that people were the most angry at, but he'd gone his whole career without his name appearing on a list like that, and now it had. And then the other one happened within the last month. Back in April, the satellite radio people announced a multi-year deal with Sebastian Maniscalco, and the former Raw comedy channel became Sebastian Maniscalco's comedy radio. He made a joke about how the hard part would be teaching his father how to find the channel in the car. Then, a comic named Liz Mealy posted a video about what the change had meant for working comedians who used to get played there, and that video took off pretty quickly.

11:29 Hi, my name is Liz Mealy. I'm a stand-up comedian, and this video is for Sebastian Maniscalco. The problem is, Raw went from playing 800 working-class comedians to now playing less than 300 celebrity comedians. Because of this action, hundreds of comedians will no longer be able to have these royalties. Working-class comedians, people that only make money on the road, that have no safety net, that depend on this money to just survive are going from having that money to nothing. Other comedians, including Patton Oswalt, Marc Maron, Dane Cook, Margaret Cho, Michelle Wolfe, and many others, well covered on Daily Comedy News, they all made videos of their own and addressed Sebastian by name.

12:19 Sebastian Maniscalco has taken over that station, and apparently a lot of people are losing their airtime, which means they're losing a lot of income. that they need as working class comics. So this is sort of a plea and a request for Sebastian to make room and give all those comics their airtime back. The point being, a guy who had never been called out by his peers for anything suddenly had some of the biggest names in comedy doing it all in the same week. They were polite about it. Mealy said nobody was angry at him. Batten Oswald said he didn't think Sebastian meant any harm. But it was public and it was aimed at him. That's a new experience for a comic whose whole reputation was that everybody liked him. And now if you look him up or if you ask the casuals, they're kind of like, what's that guy with the radio thing? What's going on? Sebastian noticed on Instagram.

13:08 He addressed his fellow comedians and told them, I heard you. I support you. I love you. I want to let you know that I heard you. I support you. I love you. I know how hard the grind is. Believe me, I've been there. But I wanted to let you know that I had nothing to do with removing the raw comedy from SiriusXM. That was a SiriusXM decision. But I also want to let you know that I'm going to work with SiriusXM to highlight a variety of different voices in stand-up comedy, from emerging to established to newcomers and everything in between. I just ask that you give me a little time, guys. I just got here, and I needed a little time to build out the channel. So I just want to let you know that I heard you and just give me some time and be patient. And I think you'll like the result. God bless everybody.

14:01 But here's where it gets wonky. His act is built around the phrase, aren't you embarrassed? It was the title of a special. He's the man who watches how people behave and can't believe they weren't raised better. The act's easy to live up to when you're an outsider waiting tables and looking at everybody else. It's a lot harder when you're the name on everything and people are looking at you. Aren't you embarrassed? He's still one of the best-selling comics alive. Nothing in the last year has changed that. You know, most of the people have gotten over the Riyadh thing. The casuals forget about the radio thing. But it's still out there in the Google searches. He had a 25-year run where nobody in comedy had a bad word to say about him. And, you know, people are being kind, but again, the Google search is more complicated this day. He's handling it okay. He says he needs time.

14:44 I don't know how much time he needs than that. is your deep dive on sebastian maniscalco on a saturday normal episode tomorrow and tomorrow and the other feed is late night dead episode three we take a look at conan o'brien taking over the late night franchise i'm johnny mac see you tomorrow