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Caloroga Shark Media. Hi there, Johnny mat with your Bailey
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Comedy News. The Wall Street Journal asked Louis ck about
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when he started selling stand up specials and tickets to
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fans directly, which came in handy when the entertainment world
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cut ties with Ck. They were curious. Was that the
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business equivalent of being a doomsday prepper? Louis C. K said,
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It's not the way I looked at it. I got
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to be a top guy all of a sudden. If
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I put a show on sale, it sold out, didn't
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matter where. That's an incredible thing to experience, and I'm
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really curious about the way things work. So I thought,
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I'm gonna perch here. How could I benefit the fans
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and get with them more directly? With the special I released,
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which was live at the Beacon Theuter back in twenty eleven,
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Ck said, I just wanted them to be able to
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click and watch with a tiny bump of commerce five bucks,
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and it was like a million dollars in a week.
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I never had a million dollars before. It was just crazy.
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And then all of a sudden, I also had that
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email list. These are the premium leads. The entertainment industry
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has gotten really confusing and bye. There's a lot of
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fear based prohibition now and weird rules. But I don't
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have to live by any of those. I'm in a
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little bit of a close circuit. There's a lot of
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people that don't know I'm working. I sold out Madison
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Square Garden and about one hundred thousand people bought the
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live stream. Was a huge night, but it was like
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a secret something kind of amazing about being a secret superstar.
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The Journal asked if he wishes the TV show Louis
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were easier for people to rewatch or discover. Ck said,
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it's on my website and people buy it steadily. Would
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I like it to be on a platform or something, sure,
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but that ain't up to me. Is Ck anywhere close
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to his twenty seventeen earning level. Louis said no, no, no.
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I was making stupid money and the things people were
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saying about me were bigger than reality, and I didn't
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know how to handle it. Nobody does. Then that evaporated,
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and now I'm just more connected to just getting paid
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for what I do. If I can keep writing novels,
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I don't think I'll tour at this level. I really
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love my life now I didn't used to, and going
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on the road takes me away from that life. So
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I think I'll take a long break after this tour,
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and if I come back to it, I'll come back
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to it in a smaller way. GQ asked Stephen Colbert
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prior to The Late Show. You played a character for
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a long time. How has it been spending the last
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ten years as yourself? Colbert explained, Yeah, it's pretty close.
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I mean, it's performance persona. There are times when it's
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very close to me, especially if there's something that cannot
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receive a joke. There are things that will not receive
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the matrix of our desire to do comedy. And I
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choose not to talk about tragedy on my show because
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I think that's sacred. But there are things that are
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unavoidable that are happening in our country, and because I
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talk about what's happening in America today. I don't generally
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say or do things I don't mean on the show
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unless I'm in character, like in a sketch. Whereas that
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the Colbert arepoort was almost nothing. Basically it was Catholic
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and Lord of the Rings were the only two things
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that we had in common. I get that I was
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talking with one of the trivia guys recently about this,
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and also I talk about this with my college class
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a lot. The Johnny Mick persona that you're listening to
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right now, for one, has a certain delivery. I don't
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speak like this and normal I'm not like at trivia night,
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like hey, Glenn, should we get a beer? Like this
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isn't the way of talking. It'd be like you want another?
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One would be how I would normally speak. Professor McDermott
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is also a bit of her performance. I have to
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try and keep college students entertained for two plus hours.
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So I got what Colbert is there. It's, you know,
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an exaggerated version of your real self. He was asked
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how he looks back on the Stephen Colbert character from
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The Colbert Report. He said, finally, I mean, it was
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enjoyable to do. A lot of people thought you couldn't
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sustain it, and I always thought I could because a
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mask is such a gift for me, at least as
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a performer, because really all my training in my entire
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career until I did that show was as an actor.
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And we had a bible for the character. We kept
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a running bible. What does he believe? What does he
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not believe, what's his back history, what's the relationship with
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other people. We were writing it as this ongoing narrative
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where nothing we did should be contradicted by other things
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we did for that character. I'm gonna jump in there too.
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So when I ran the Raw Dog comedy channel at Sirius,
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the station voice was Satan. It was my production guy,
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Saldo Leo, using a voice processor, so it dropped his
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voice down and it was like serious, what O four?
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He had used the Satan character at a promo and
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I liked it, and I'm like, let's make that the
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station voice. But here we also had a writer's guide
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or a bible about it. The way I wrote the
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character was there was nothing satanic about it. As we
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wrote the character, Satan was a guy with a deep
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voice who sure he's the devil, but the only reason
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he's working with us on rowd dogg is because we
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pay well. And he thought everything we did was stupid.
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So sometimes the bosses would make us promote things. I
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remember one time we had to promote Oprah Winfrey Radio,
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which I didn't think there was much of a crossover
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with the raw Dog audience. Like if rowd Dog was
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a person, raw Dog would have been classic Bill Burr,
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not the current version, the young angry version that would
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have been rawd dogg It had come to life, so
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the satan character, for example, promoting Oprah Winfrey Radio would
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get about two thirds of the way down to the
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mandated copy and just be like oh and throw out
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a piece of paper, and sal would record the piece
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of paper hitting the waste basket and then just leave
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dead air. And that was the way we handled things.
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GQ said, I had forgotten so recently. There was a
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moment when people thought you, Stephen Colbier and John Stewart
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were going to save the republic somehow, Colbert said, I
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promise you we did not share that feeling, especially when
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reflecting back on the Rally to Restore Sanity slash March
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to Keep Fear Alive. He was doing the rally to
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restore sanity. I was doing the March to keep Fear alive,
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and I liked to remind him that I won. We
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kept fear alive. Switching topics, what comedians is Colbert into?
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I celebrate all of them because I love comedy. I'm
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a huge fan of Dave Chappelle. I love Kat Williams.
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I guess I should have started a podcast now. The
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other day I told you Stephen Colbert said he would
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not do a podcast. In this interview, Who's asked would
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he consider doing another podcast? He said, I would, and
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I'd love to do one with my daughters. I've got
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funny kids. My baby's twenty years old. She doesn't want
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to be in stand up but if she comes out
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on stage, people throw their purse in the air. She's
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got something and people beg to see her in videos
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and all that. She likes money, so she might do
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a podcast with me if it meant money. So yesterday,
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was it yesterday or the day before where I told
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you write this down? Steven Colbert will to another podcast.
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You wrote it down right, Thank you, You're welcome. Friday
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waxed Jim Gaffigan's car. Jim, you've done eleven stand up specials.
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How has the press too evolved over time? Jim said,
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there's still the power of the late night shows. Some
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of that is prestige, but a lot of is that
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the clips that come out out in those appearances, whether
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you're on the Tonight Show or Kimmel. Notice he's not
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doing NBC twelve thirty. Make NBC twelve thirty great again.
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But obviously the power of podcasts is significant, and you
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end up getting very strategic about how you place these things.
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Even the outlet for comedy specials always moving. I had
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two specials on Comedy Central, then I did one on
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my website. Then I did a couple on Netflix, a
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couple on Amazon, and one on Hulu, which, as listeners
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to the show know, is where you go when you're
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on your way down. Sorry, Jim, sorry to break it
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to you. It's always moving. Is Apple going to get
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into the business, Is Ellison going to buy Hbo? And
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then they're going to compete with Netflix. It's constantly changing,
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so you have to guess ahead. But in some ways
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the powerhouse now might be YouTube. That doesn't take anything
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away from how important Netflix is or their paychecks, but
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comedians have become so successful by posting their specials on
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YouTube that it can actually allow them to go to Netflix.
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Jim was asked, besides eyeballs and money, what are the
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metrics you weigh when choosing which distributed partner? With time out?
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Here's who he chooses money. I guarantee you money, Jim says,
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I see a special as harvesting crops. Money. You always
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want to be expanding your audience money. If I'm going
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to Baltimore, Denver every two years, I don't expect that
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the people who enjoy my stand up are coming every
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two years. That's not realistic. Some of them are busy,
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some don't have disposable income. You always want to be
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expanding the audience that enjoice your comedy. So when I
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first went to Amazon Money, I knew they had to
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reach that at that time. Netflix didn't. With Hulu Money.
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I knew there were viewers who consumed a ton of
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stuff there, So why not spread the wealth money. It's
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easier for me to do that than someone like Dave Chapelle,
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who's getting a huge check he doesn't have to factor in.
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Maybe I can get more people. Stop, Jim, stop stop
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stop stop stop stop. You mean to tell me that
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if I don no Amazon Prime goes Hey, Jim New
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Special twenty bucks and Netflix goes thirty bucks, You're picking
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Amazon Prime get lost. Jim. What excite you about the future,
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he said, It's an exciting time for creative people. I
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know things are scary, but I think that translates to
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a certain independence. Creative. People who are self starters are
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gonna be fine. Most incredibly, Jude didn't promote his bourbon
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in any of that. I remember that Jeff Dye guy,
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he was on Joe Rogan's show. Jeff Dye said, I'm
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sympathetic to the things female comics have to go through through.
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Then Dian Rogan started talking about de Ei style mandates
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when in the field. Joe Rogan said, they've literally said
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we have too many white male comics. Jeff Didye said,
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I've heard it my whole career. Yeah, I mean, I
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don't book comedy shows. What are people really saying? No, no, no,
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we have too many white male comics. Because I don't know.
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I pay attention to the comedy scene, and there seemed
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to be a lot of white male comics. No. Jeff
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Dye said, someone comes out and goes, listen, if you're
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a straight white guy, you better be real different. It's Boston,
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we're all straight white guys. That kind of hurt my
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feelings a little bit. What does that imply about my circumstances.
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Apparently an agent told Jeff Die The agent was praising
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one of the agent's other clients. Apparently, the agent told
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Jeff die he has all these great things that make
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him interesting in the industry. I think you're gonna have
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to reinvent yourself. Rogan said, that's just Hollywood. We don't
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do that in Texas. In the Mothership, it's a meritocracy.
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And because it's a meritocracy, it's very diverse. You got
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a lot of women in the lineup. You got all
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kinds of people. Rogan said. The vast majority of comics
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at my club are left wing. They are artists. I'll
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tell you who's got a great agent or pr team.
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Leanne Morgan, her whole team gets it done now. She
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was on the Today Show the topic how her show
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Leanne was renewed for second season. Leanne said, Jerry Seinfeld
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called me the day came out. He said, you have
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a sitcom with your name on it, which is unheard of.
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You were in there with Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore,
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Lucille Ball. All right, tap the breaks, I mean, yes, congratulations,
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very successful. What eight episode season one? Can we tap
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the breaks before we start comparing you to Lucille Ball.
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I mean, for example, Richard Lewis had a show called
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Anything but Love that got more than a year. We
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don't talk about that one much. So before we put
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you on the Pantheon with New Heart, Mary Tyler Moore
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and Lucille Ball Tap the Breaks, Jerry rude As told Forbes,
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I would never call myself veggie. I think any comedian
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that refers to themselves as edgy or uncancellable putting these
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things on themselves you see a lot in America. I
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think they're in trouble as an artist anyway, And those
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guys are usually the first to fold. In my experience,
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comics just keep writing jokes, and you call us what
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you feel the freedom to call us. We're just thinking
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about the next show. So no, I wouldn't call myself
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any of those things. It's not my privilege, it's yours.
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I don't think controversy is adding any currency in art.
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I don't. I think it's a trap. Then you're constantly
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going to be chasing that. But I also don't think
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you can predict what'll get you into controversy. It's the
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thing you never thought of. Fred Armison will be honored
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with the Ernie Kovacs Award at Dallas Video Fest today
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at the Texas Theater in Dallas. The Ernie Kovacs Awards,
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introduced in nineteen ninety seven, honors television's greatest visionaries. Past
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recipients include Joel Hodgson, Al Franken, and Terry Gilliam. Fred