June 20, 2026

Kill Tony Explained: How Tony Hinchcliffe Became the Biggest Comedy Show in America

Show Notes
Transcript

Kill Tony fills arenas. Tony Hinchcliffe hosts. Open micers do one minute. How did this become the most important comedy show in America? Johnny Mac explains.

Kill Tony fills arenas. A show where strangers do one minute of standup in front of thousands of people somehow became one of the most watched comedy properties in the country. Johnny Mac looks at how Tony Hinchcliffe built it, what Joe Rogan's Austin move actually did and didn't do for the show, why the arena format works when it shouldn't, and what Kill Tony tells us about what comedy audiences actually want right now.

What is Kill Tony?" – "How did Kill Tony get so big?" – "Who is Tony Hinchcliffe?" – "Why does Kill Tony fill arenas?" – "Is Kill Tony good for comedians' careers?" – "What is the Kill Tony format?" – "Joe Rogan and Kill Tony connection"

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Daily Comedy News with Johnny Mac is a daily podcast covering comedians, stand-up comedy, late night television, and the comedy industry. New episodes every morning. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

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This is the animal sanctuary mentioned in the February 10 episode.

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Caloroga Shark Media.

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Hey there, I'm Johnny Magan. On Saturdays this summer, I'm

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doing some deep dives on single topics. Today, let's take

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a look at kill Tony, which premiered When Everybody June third,

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twenty thirteen. This is not an overnight success.

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I find it ironic when fat people wear t shirts

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promoting fitness. The other day I saw a guy wearing

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a Nike shirt that said there is no finish line,

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and so I just came to the assumption he wears

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that to the Golden crowd.

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If you were trying to explain kill Tony to somebody

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who'd never heard it or seen it, the easiest shortcuts

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to say it's a comedy competition show, and that shortcut

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is wrong in almost every way that matters. Technically, Yes,

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people come up, they do a minute Tonyhinchcliff in the band,

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and whoever the guest is that week react to it.

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Sometimes people get brought back. There's a structure. But calling

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Kiltny a competition show is like calling the comedy store

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a building where comedians perform. It's accurate, but it misses

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the point. The thing that Kiltny actually is the reason

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it feels arenas now. The reason comedians fly themselves out

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to Austin to sit in the audience on the chance

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they might might might get pulled. The reason that has

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become one of the more genuinely interesting things happening in

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comedy right now is because kil Tony is actually a

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live document of what stand up comedy looks like at

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every level, simultaneously from the open micer who's been doing

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it for four months and who's terrified and is going

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to get mocked to whoever the guest might be that week,

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could be Shane Gillis, could be Ron White, could be

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Joe Rogan, all that in real time, no editing, no polish.

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Without the safety net that TV puts under, everything sounds simple,

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not simple. Most attempts to capture comedy and its raw

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state end up either feeling too curated to feel real.

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Kevin Hart's recent show out a little bit of that,

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we're too chaotic to be watchable. Kil Tony's neither of

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those things, and the reason it isn't is because of

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Tony Hinchcliff now thing about Tony. Tony's an interesting person

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to have become the center of the biggest comedy show

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in America because his public probe file outside of kill

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Tony is unusual. He's known as a roast rider, one

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of the best in the business, arguably the best working

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right now.

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Burt Kreischer is a king.

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He looks like at the Tiger King and the Liver King,

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only a Burger King and had a liver that looked

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like Martin Luther King got beat up by Rodney King.

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Roast writers usually are behind the camera. They're the people

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that write the joke that destroys someone at the Friars

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Club or on Comedy Central or on the Netflix roast Now,

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and then they sit in the back while the celebrity

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gets the credit and the clip goes viral. Tony has

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broken out of that Nicky glazer.

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What a performance tonight?

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Am I right? Absolutely?

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Tellar Nikki who wrote that where was that? Your entire career?

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Nicky has such a bad eating disorder. The industry keeps

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shoving her down our throat. You might recognize of her

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podcast appearances, specials and winning the Triple Crown at Churchill Downs.

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It's his sensibility as a roast rider, or the precision,

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the willingness to go somewhere that makes the room uncomfortable,

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the understanding of exactly how far you could push something

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before it stops being funny. All that makes him good

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at hosting kill Tony. He knows how to read a room.

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He knows how to find the thing about a person

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that's the most interesting to poke at. Underrated skill. He

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knows how to be mean in a way that's entertaining

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rather than just cruel. Also a very specific skill that

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most people who think they have don't have. You got

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to appreciate kill Tony as a host. Hosting that show

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is one of the harder jobs in comedy. You're dealing

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with open micers who might completely fall apart. You're dealing

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with big guests who have their own energy, their own agenda.

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You're managing the live band you're keeping, whether it's four

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hundred or four thousand people or MSG engaged throughout an

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episode that might run three hours no script. The comp

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is in some ways Howard Stern. Howard credited with being

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the greatest radio host who ever lived, because if his

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ability to make four hours of live radio feel like

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it's moving along, Tony does something similar in a comedy show.

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He doesn't get enough credit for how hard that is

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to do. Now, let's not underestimate the Rogan connection. The

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Rogan connection is real. Yes, Rogan is a friend of Tony's. Yes,

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Rogan has appeared on Kill Tony. Yes, Kill Tony's based

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in Austin, and Kill Tony moving from LA to Austin

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is not unrelated to the fact that Rogan moved to

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Austin and took a big chunk of the comedy ecosystem

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with him. But again, Kill Tony started in twenty thirteen

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as a small live show. The premise simple, one minute,

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a button gets pushed times up, and what Tony has

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figured out over years of doing it is that the

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format is infinitely generative. No two minutes are the same

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because the range of people show up do their minute

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is so wide you never know what you're gonna get.

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The combination of a strict format and completely unpredictable content

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creates tension that keeps the show moving even when individual

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parts aren't that great, and there's a lot of individual

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moments that are not great. That's part of the show.

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I know what you're thinking. Why is my GTA drug

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dealer on stage right now?

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Um?

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Ooh that cough was rough at the plane crashes are rough.

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Right.

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Can we agree that they're bad, But I actually think

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they're the perfect opportunity to get something off your bucket list,

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because in that one minute before touchdown, you get away

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with anything. You are a video game character. You know

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what I do in that opportunity. When I Wilita and

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Nana they're praying for salvation for a miracle, I'm going

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to get out of my seat and I'm going to

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punch a kid right there.

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Okay, wow, hi over here, buddy, how are you going on?

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I'm your worst nightmare? Look over here, keep looking at me.

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Don't get distracted. Your add is uh oh, there you go.

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You just said something else, look at you. One of

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the absolute worst performances imaginable, doing everything backwards, coming out,

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calling the crowd ugly, getting sidetracked by a very light,

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normal cough by someone in the second row that nobody

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in the back of the room could hear. You had

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to describe it as rough. Cough was rough. Yeah, you

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got sidetracked there, And then you talked about plane crashes,

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a punchlineless bit about how you would punch someone else's

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kid because you were punched by your parents, but you're

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punching another person's kids.

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Yeah, the cycle abuse needs to keep going. You know

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I'm perpetuating.

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Well, you just abused three hundred and thirty people here tonight.

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The years of grinding that show in La building, the

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audience slowly figuring out what worked what didn't. That's the

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part of the kill Tony story that get skipped when

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people just go yeah, Rogan. What the move to Austin

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did do was concentrate a massive comedy talent in one

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place that made kill Tony's guest rosters suddenly and dramatically

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better on a consistent basis. When your friend is Joe

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Rogan and everybody's in the same city and Joe's got

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the club that helps. Let's also looked at the comedy

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scene that coalesced in Austin, the people who either live

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there or pop in there a lot. In the Rogan

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verse Rogan, of course, Shane gillis THEO Vaughn for Krascher,

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someone in the orbit Ron White. All that created conditions

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were kill Tony could pull a remarkable guest almost any

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week it wanted to. As I'm recording this, let me

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just scroll down some recent episodes. Tom Sagora, Shane Gillis

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or a Shafir, Jelly Roll, Theo Vaughn, Jeff Ross. I mean,

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those are some great guests, especially for this particular format.

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When you have Bill Burr sitting next to Tony Hinchcliff

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watching an open mic or do their minute, and then

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Bill Burr gives his reaction, you're getting an education in

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how a working professional at the highest level of the

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craft thinks about comedy. You're hearing a Bill Burr type

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explain why something worked or didn't work, what he would

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have done differently with the bid is actually about underneath

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what the person thought it was about. You can't get

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that in a class, you can't write that down anywhere.

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It's the oral tradition of stand up happening in public,

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and it's one of the valuable things that kill Tony

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does that nobody really planned for it to do.

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Uh yeah, I would just say just slow down a

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little bit.

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Okay, slow down a little bit, and just the more

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you do your jokes, the more they'll come off natural

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and you won't be like, I don't know if you

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were in your head we're trying to remember him. I

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remember like I was in my notebook for the first

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year and a half. You know, and I would just

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be like having a teleprompt ghost just I would just

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slow down a little bit.

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Okay, that's it.

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It's not a threat.

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Ladies and gentlemen, this is Madison Square Garden. This is

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a show based in Austin, Texas. So while I have

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a lot of great New Yorkers scattered throughout the show,

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my two guests live with us in Austin, Texas. Ladies

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and Gentlemen introducing first, make some noise for one of

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the best comedians in the world.

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This is Shane Gillis. Oh my god, Shane is back.

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And why don't we keep that energy going to the

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Great and Powerple showro again.

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Now there were the arena shows. That's where things get

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pretty interesting for kill Tony Arenas. You know, Madison Square Garden,

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a show that is a live podcast about open micers

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filled the garden. The arena shows are built around a

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kind of spectacle production value, lighting the sense of event.

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What Tony figured out is that scale doesn't actually break

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the format and amplifies it because the open micer doing

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their minute in front of ten thousand people is a

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fundamentally different kind of moment than doing it in front

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of four hundred, The stakes are higher, The silence when

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something doesn't land is deeper, the explosion when something works

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is bigger. The format designed to create tension and pressure

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and reaction actually benefits from scale in a way most

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formats don't. There are comedians working today who can trace

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a significant portion of the current audience directly to a

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kill Tony appearance, not a guest appearance, the one minute appearance.

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One minute Atlanta got clipped, got shared, showed up in

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the algorithm, I got watched by people who already Kill

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Tony fans. The historical analogies actually the Tonight Show with

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Johnny Carson, but kill Tony does it faster and more organically,

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and without the fielder of a booker deciding that you're

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ready or not. The comedians who are taking kill Tony

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seriously as a career move, who are flying to Austin,

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who were working on their minute the way work on

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a late night set, understand that one great moment in

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front of Tony's audience is worth more than one hundred

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great minutes in front of a club audience that doesn't

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have a streaming component. And then there's Tony himself, a

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comedian who's primarily known for the show rather than a persona.

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If you ask most people what Tony Hinchcliff's stand up

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is like, they'll say dark, precise, roasty. But the stand

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up isn't what they think of they think about Kill Tony.

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It's a trade off he seems to have made consciously.

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They're comedians who would no pun killed to have what

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Tony has platform with that reach, big audience, weekly presence Netflix.

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And then there are comedians who would never trade the

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freedom of a state of career for the responsibility of

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running a big show like Kill Tony.

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Now.

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Did any plan all this? That probably gives him too

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much credit. More likely, he found a format he liked,

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did it for a few years, got logging in some

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of the timing and the geography, and built something that

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happened to be exactly what the comedy audience was looking

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for without necessarily knowing they were looking for it. It's

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usually how the things at last get built. Kill Tony

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is good enough, the audience found it, and now it

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feels a renus. You can comment on this episode in

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the Facebook group Daily Comedy News Podcast Group, where on

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Spotify comments are open, and follow the show on Spotify

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turn on notifications so you never miss an episode. I'll

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be back at tomorrow with a normal episode. I'll see

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you then