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Callarogus Shark Media. Hi there, I'm Johnny Mack. My guest
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today is Mike Chisholm. He's the host of the Letterman
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podcast Now If You Arnists recently discussed the top ten
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late night hosts. I mentioned at the end of that
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episode that I clipped it and split off a piece
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of that conversation to be its own thing. That is
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this piece that you're hearing today. Mike asked me about
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my list of the top comedy specials of twenty twenty five,
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and let's jump in.
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I want to talk to you about your Billboard list.
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I don't know if we do that here, if we
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do that somewhere else or not, but I appreciated the
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fact I totally disagree with you, but you had a
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little bit of indignation when Norm McDonald appeared on the
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list and I was like, wait a second, of course
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he needs to be on the list. Norm is like
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to me, But that brings it back to what is
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the purpose of the list and how do you get
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on the list? Is it because if it's tickets sold,
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like a guy like Adam Sandler probably deserves to be
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on that list, but like, like, what's the criteria? Right,
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if it's tickets sold, nor McDonald probably doesn't deserve to
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be on that list, right, So like, where where do
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you draw the lines at what categories?
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You know?
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Do you emerge them all together and they become something?
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All right? Boboard's top twenty five comedians of the twenty
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first century so far? So you asked the right question
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of so first of all, with any of these lists,
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and I say this all the time. Yes, my list, here, list,
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somebody else's list. They're all valid. Right. So if you
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said to me, come back next week and give me
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your top ten late night hosts of all time, I'm
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probably gonna flip your top two. And you know, does
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it really matter that I have Carson one and Letterman two? Like?
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Is that really right? We're fighting over we're spiritually saying
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the same thing. When I look at the Billboard list,
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there were some names on there that I was like, yeah, okay,
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of course that makes a lot of sense, And then
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some people I struggled with. One of the names I
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called out was John Stewart, who earlier in this conversation
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I put in some sort of hall of fame and
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said nothing but great things about him. Do I think
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of him as one of the great stand ups. I
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don't he's He's currently out on tour with Pete Davidson
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and I haven't seen him live recently, so maybe he's awesome,
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but I just don't think of him that way. And
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Norm MacDonald, Now please understand, Norm MacDonald has a comedy
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album with I don't know what the titles of the
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tracks are called, but there's a bit about the Fantastic Four,
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and one about Superman and one about the the Let's
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break this apart? Okay, you got time? Got time? Yes,
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so the Fantastic for a bit, I'll do the poor
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man's version of it until loose spoil for it, spoiler
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for everybody. And again I'm not telling it right. But
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the setup is Norm is read Richard's and he's giving
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everyone their nicknames, and he's like, well, Sue, you know
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you're uh, you're invisible, so you'll be the invisible woman. Okay, great,
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great great? And Johnny you're uh, you know you light
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on fire. You'll be the uh, we'll call you the
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human torch. Okay, yeah, I like that. And me, I'm
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a I'm a mister fantastic And they're like, well you
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shouldn't you be like mister stretchy Man or something. No, No,
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I'm mister Fantastic And it's a great bit. And then
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the album goes on to the Disease Gambler sportscaster. Right,
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so I don't know if you know this bit, but
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they're calling the Jets game and and I don't know
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if it's Dan Patrick. It's like somebody legit is calling
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the games, like, you know, the Jets will line up
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here for you know, a third and five. They don't
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make this, you know, they'll have to punt, and Norm's
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characters going, well, actually, you know, if they're gonna win
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by six and a half, they should go for it
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like that kind of humor because he's clearly got money
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on the game, and that's hilarious. And then there's a
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Superman bit where where nobody believes that Clark Kent is Superman.
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They think somebody else is Superman. But because he wants
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to hook up with Lois Lane, he's trying to convince
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everyone that he is Superman. And it's just it's a
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wonderful album, but it's all sketches. It's one of my
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favorite comedy albums. It's fantastic, yep, but it's not stand up.
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Norms stand up, especially the posthumous special, is really good.
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But I don't think of him as as a stand up.
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I picture him doing OJ jokes behind the desk. Now,
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I'm not throwing tomatoes at the idea of Norm McDonald,
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but just I just wouldn't think of him as a
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as a stand up.
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Well, it's funny because I put him on the list
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for the same reason that you celebrated putting a tel
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on the list. He's a stand up stand up you
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know at tel is is I don't you know, you
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get guys along the way, you know, prior Kinnison to
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some hicks, you know, some of these people that do
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become like they're the they're the revered ones by the
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comedians themselves. I think Norm is certainly that guy to
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a certain group, and I think atl is as well.
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So that I put Norman for that reason. I give
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him the intangible reason because he probably doesn't have the
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box office that some of the some of these other
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people do. But at the same time, so many people
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revere him like like there's a part in The New
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Letterman with Adam where where Adam Adam Sadler's talking about
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being on tour the last tour all we do that
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with Norm, and you just see Dave go all like
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he like he has a thrill emotional reaction just to
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hearing the first name of Norm MacDonald and and it's
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there's so many people out there who feel that way
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about Norm and and so I think that that's why
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I think Mitch Heedberg sort of has a similar uh
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almost almost an infa It's not infamy, but it's it's
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it's a reverence. And I think he's got a similar
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one as well. I put I put those guys in
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the same category. All right, let's talk about Mitch and
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then I'll come back to a tell for me. Sure,
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I think one of the truths of Mitch's career.
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Is that it's short.
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And I've had Hedberg related guests on the show, and
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I do wonder twenty years into that style would he
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have had to evolve. Around the time of his death,
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he was starting to work more quickly because the crowd
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wouldn't let him stay in the slower pace. You've got
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the two albums on the posthumous album, and that's the
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body of work, and a couple of Letterman appearances and
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a few random things, and it's all great. But what
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happens if you tag twenty more years onto that see
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our earlier discussion about Dane Cook, who nobody talks about now.
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So is Mitch a shooting star? And that helps our
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memory of Mitch probably As for David's till Johnny MANX
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show me the body of work, I can't. But I've
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been in rooms where Dave Tel shows up and does
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it's not even crowd work. I'll call it crowd surfing.
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You know, hey, what's going on here? Everybody? And he's
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just kind of riffing and you're having a good time.
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And back to my three am nuclear test of I
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got to wake up comedian out of bed and go, hey,
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I got a room of eighty people in the other
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room and I need somebody to do twenty minutes.
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Can you do it?
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Hell be a pretty safe bet.
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There, absolutely, yeah, Like see, there you go.
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You articulated the point that I was trying to get across,
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like show me the body of work. Well, but at
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the same time you talk to he like I was
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listening to Roga the other day and somebody somebody said,
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oh yeah, and then.
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A Tel showed up and Joe went, oh, like like
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it's the same kind of thing.
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Like it.
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They just have reverence for a Tel like a Tel
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is just that he's that guy. But again, you know,
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when you're comparing him to a Nate Barghassi, you know
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who's selling out stadiums all over the place, and they're
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talking about a theme park.
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They're talking about.
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Theme parker, That's that's not real, right, there's nothing that
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I think is real.
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He's thinking that.
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No, he's serious about it, So Nate, So again, guy
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and guy recording a podcast in his basement. Shut up?
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What do you know you're you're talking to sure people?
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Shut up? I get it.
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Well, Nate's you know, playing the hockey arena.
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I get it.
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But back to the three am test. If I got
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to wake somebody out of bed and go hey, Nate,
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I get eighty people in the other room and need
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you to just uh, you know, crush twenty minutes, and
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he's going to go into a room cold and do
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his act. I'll take a tell in that scenario.
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Okay, So now that we're talking, yeah, I would too.
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I would too.
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Now we're talking about Nate and we're talking about mitch
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Heedburg and and at the end of the day, both
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of these guys are characters.
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They're both you know, Steve Stephen Wright.
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I mean, okay, so mitch Heedberg, he might be like
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a Stephen Wright right now, uh where where where he's
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still to be been around and stayed on on, you know,
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in that style. When Nate hosted what did he was it?
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The wasn't the Emmys Crownies, No, the Emmys.
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It was EMMI. It was the Emmies. Yeah, yeah, yah,
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where he did the timer thing and all that.
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By the way, we don't even know is the point,
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but go ahead, we sure don't know.
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We'd he's the same guy. He's the character. Like I
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love the character.
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I love the dumb you know, slightly slightly dim, you know,
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like like like like I love the character that he
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is when he's on stage. It's fantastic. But to me,
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it's a little one dimensional. If you put it and
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present it in the wrong place, I think it's gonna
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fall f I don't understand how it would go for
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a theme like I don't. I don't understand how a
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theme park would work, like I don't.
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Know Nate Land the Family, Yeah, Lee Nashville base You know,
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you go on the I don't know Nate Coaster and
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I don't know.
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I I don't.
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I don't get it. I think he's insane. I think
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it's hey, Wan of Eat is to where hockey read
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is and and and be the highest grossing comedian. I
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don't know why he would want to get into to
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the theme park business. I don't understand. It's interesting. It's
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interesting to say the least. But did you see the
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trailer for the movie?
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I haven't yet. I still haven't.
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It's on my list of things to Yeah, I know
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I've heard, I've heard things.
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I now Kevin James was sick that day, I'll put
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it that way.
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But it's so funny how how like Like when you
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talk about how you know comedy is, it's it's it's
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one of those things where you know it's contextualized through
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the eye of the beholder and what their opinion is.
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Like Like I did not watch Happy Gilmour two for
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a month based on hearing people's reaction to it, and
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the the reason that was the case is because I
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have a special place in my heart for the original
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Happy Gilmore. I was in that perfect you know, late teen,
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early twenty kind of kind of place. And my friends
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and I went on and saw Happy Gilmore on opening night,
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and we thought it was funny as all get out,
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like we were the demographic for that movie. And when
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I when this movie, when when the sequel came out,
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I was excited to watch it, but then I heard
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the reactions for it. I watched the movie. I really
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liked it. I thought it was I thought it was funny.
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I enjoy I you know, so it's always in the
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eye of the beholder. But yeah, like that being said
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a theme park, I don't know. I just I don't.
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I don't. I don't get it.
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Well, I mean, for Happy Gilmore, we know that all
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your opinions are stupid. You don't even have Johnny Carson
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number one, so you don't know what you're talking about.
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But talking about good Adam Sandler movies, they just see
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j Kelly, great dramatic at gra Adam Sandlor. He's so goodness,
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so good.
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I watched it, do that. Watch yep, yep, yep, yep.
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They're talking about Oscar buzz already like and then.