Marc Maron’s Life After WTF - What Comes Next?

0:01 Hello, I'm Johnny Mac with your daily comedy news. The LA Times caught up with Mark Maron, who's trying to figure out what to do with all his free time now that he's not a podcaster. He says, I do comedy every night. I exercise. I do work around the house. I've been reading a lot, trying to fill my head with stuff that makes me smarter somehow or makes me look at things differently. I tend to be pretty busy somehow, but I can make a day out of one or two errands. He is filming a new special in December. That's exciting. He said we're considering calling the special Free Time. He also talked about how not podcasting is affecting his comedy because WTF would start with stream of conscious monologues and sometimes those would turn into bits. Marin said, I imagine there's a lot more stuff being generated on a week to week basis when I was thinking out loud, but that's OK. Now, without the constant conversations outside of just having conversations with my friends, a lot of the ideas develop on stage and they don't start in public. It enables me to have some privacy over what I'm working on and also over my life. People genuinely want to see what's going on with me because they were so used to hearing it every week. It's sort of a big check-in. That's fun.

1:08 From Late Nighter, NBC is already looking ahead to The Tonight Show's 75th anniversary in 2029. That makes you think the show will still be around. I saw they had a graphic where they had all the hosts of The Tonight Show. They only had Jay Leno on there once. I was curious. They took the use of Johnny Carson in their montage. They picked a very young, dark haired Johnny Carson, not the salt and pepper early 70s or later Johnny that I think is the Johnny in most of our minds. They went with a very young Johnny, whereas the one they used for Jay, Jay has a lot of salt and pepper. So I'm not sure why they picked the younger Johnny. Maybe the Carson estate weighed in on that.

1:48 But it's not the Johnny Carson I picture when I think of Johnny Carson. Neither here nor there. We all age, and Johnny was younger once and a good-looking guy. Anyway, the Tonight Show showrunner Chris Miller says the show is actively discussing how to mark the 75th anniversary. He told Variety... We're absolutely talking about it. We're sort of next in line for a big tentpole type of anniversary. Yes, we're actively thinking about it and talking about it and hope we'll have fun news for that soon. What would you do? Are you going to invite Jay Leno back? I guess you could. Are you going to invite Conan back? Boy, that would be all kinds of interesting. Also, Leno is aging. I don't know if you've. Seen Jay doing anything. His speaking voice is a little older now. How old is Jay Leno?

2:31 Born in 1950, he'd be 79. I guess that's not ridiculous, but Jay is older than you remember him being, if you've seen any clips of him lately. Variety reported in September that NBC was looking at the 75th anniversary as a possible future tentpole, like they did with SNL 50. Fallon's current deal runs through the 2027-28 TV season, one shy of the anniversary. Maybe the new host will invite back Jimmy Fallon. I think Jimmy's pretty safe there. Late Nighter tells us the show turned 70 in 2024 without acknowledging it on air. The 60th anniversary in 2014 also didn't have a dedicated anniversary. The 50th anniversary, September 27, 2004, Jay Leno hosted an anniversary edition of The Tonight Show.

3:18 marking half a century since Steve Allen launched the franchise. Speaking of Steve Allen, he was the subject matter on the podcast Is Late Night Dead? In the episode I dropped on Saturday, we talked about Steve Allen. And check it out, as I put the show together and re-educated myself about Steve Allen, I felt Steve Allen was a time-traveling David Letterman. You really see where Dave got a lot of it from Steve Allen. That was Saturday's episode. And the one out today is about former Tonight Show host Jack Parr, who I've always been fascinated with. That feed is called Is Late Night Dead? Now, if you're too lazy to switch over to the other feed, starting next weekend on the weekends, we'll start dropping in episodes of Is Late Night Dead as bonus weekend episodes on this feed. So you'll still get normal daily comedy news.

4:07 And then at noon Saturday and Sunday, we'll start dropping the Is Late Night Dead episodes. Why, Johnny Mac? As I told you on Friday, fourth quarter is when podcasters make their money. The more content I can put out, the more money I make. Because first quarter, you make no money. It's all related to how Christmas sales work, right? Advertisers like to advertise around Christmastime. Fourth quarter, you make a lot of money. First quarter, you make almost no money. We are like farmers. This is when I pay for everything. That's why you're going to get bonus episodes. Conan O'Brien hosted The Tonight Show for nine months. He was at the New Yorker Festival. He told host David Remnick that he's not sentimental about the end of late night. He said when he started in 93 at 1230, a lot of his audience wasn't there by choice.

4:51 I was on at 1230 at night. So many people would stop me and say, um... Well, I have to take, I got a burn on my leg and I have to take a medication every four hours. So I have to get up at 1230, you're on. So I sit there and I rub the gel in. You can't go right to bed because it gets on the sheet. People would spend 10 minutes explaining that they were up and had no choice but to watch me. And then they would say, I didn't get it at all. But you know what? You're starting to get to me. And the leg is healing. And that was a luxury that I had. Conan said there's two kinds of comedians. The ones who are on all the time and the ones who go quiet when the cameras stop. Doug Stanhope's like that. Gilbert Gottfried was like that. Conan talked about John Candy. And then there are people.

5:43 That immediately show you that they are that person. And John Candy is a good example. He... When I was in college, I was obsessed with John Candy and SCTV, and I invited him to come visit the humor magazine, The Lampoon, and he said yes. And I've talked about this, but I picked him up at Logan Airport. And I picked him up, and I took him into Cambridge, and we had a few hours to kill before the event. And they had sent me his list of dietary restrictions, because he was on what was then called the Pritikin diet, which is like only boiled fish, with all the oil squeezed out of it, only these thin crackers, lots of water. And the first thing he did was took me on, I took him on a walk through Cambridge and he saw a pastry place.

6:36 And he said, he called me kid, let's go kid. And he took me in there and he started filling up a box with eclairs, all these giant eclairs. And he saw me with the list that had been faxed John Candy's Dietary Restrictions. It was five pages long. And he looked at me and he nudged me and he went, don't worry, kid. They're pretty kind of class. And Conan, the former SNL writer, was asked, will Lorne Michaels ever hang it up? I don't think Lorne will ever leave. And if anyone can figure out a way, you know, there are these tech billionaires out there figuring out ways to live Lorne will be a head in a jar in 600 years.

7:17 Bubble, bubble, bubble. But they'll place him in an ice round in, in orsos. I'll have the manicotti. You have no jaw. Right. Bubble, bubble, bubble. The New York comedy festival continues today. Now I'm on the website and I just saw the logo of the place where I used to work. And I'm like, oh, I know who did that deal. It's just so funny when your past. Life comes back. I really don't think about my past life. I know I mentioned on the show because I'm hosting about comedians and I worked at comedy radio for decades. That's why I bring it up. But when I'm not doing this, I don't walk around all day thinking about it. Let's see who we got here today. The Hot Guy Draft, a comedy fantasy draft at three o'clock at Littlefield. I'm actually curious what this is. The Hot Guy Draft is an interactive comedy show that pits comedians against one another in a fantasy draft of hotness. Comedians will use their expertise in the field of hotness and plenty of help from the audience to build a team of the hottest celebrities, characters, historic figures, and even cartoons.

8:23 Hmm. I am scrolling down looking for big names. How about Sarah Sherman and Patty Harrison? They're at Town Hall at 7 o'clock. It's funny, the image here is basically both of their publicity photos. You'd think the two of them could take a photo together to promote the show, but no, no, no. Alfred Roble has been a lot of heat on him lately. He's at the venue on Music Row at Hard Rock Hotel New York, a.k.a. the Hard Rock at 7 o'clock. Cartoon Strips with Hilary Campbell. Maybe this is a whole thing with comedians and cartoons. What's this one? Cartoon Strips is a variety hour hosted by New Yorker cartoonist Hilary Campbell, featuring comedians, cartoonists, burlesque dancers, and more. We're promised some tea, some A, and some laughs.

9:05 Okay. That's at the Greenpoint Comedy Club at 7. Mark Maron at the Beacon Theater at 7.30. Boy, I'd like to go see Mark Maron live, but I'm not going to New York City on a Sunday night. What are you, insane? No way. He's at the Beacon at 7.30. Moshe Kasher, still below the radar. Very, very good. Live if you ever have a chance, and you have a chance tonight. He's at the Bell House at 7.30. And Time Out has their list of comedians to watch. One of them is Hannah Magee. We're told Hannah does it all, whether it's improv at Chicago's legendary I.O. Theatre, sketch at Second City, which is right next door, or spot-on impressions of Lois Griffin on TikTok. She is a true powerhouse performer. Time Out was curious, what is the funniest thing about your life right now? Hannah said, I've developed stupid autoimmune issues because I'm a little bit inbred.

9:56 I think that's pretty funny. Who on earth would ever want to bang their cousin? Unfortunately, my great-great-grandparents. She says, please laugh so I don't cry. Well, I did laugh. A joke that always lands. She says, it's not a joke, but my burlesque character, Lucy Doocy, brings the house down. She's a frisky dominatrix with a transatlantic accent and a penchant for eating poop. Fake poop, of course. Lovingly fashioned out of brownies and titsie rolls by me. And one more. I like this guy, Forrest Shaw. He's trying to save the world. Climate change and stuff. He caught up with MainePublic.org. They said Forrest is alone on stage at the Waldorf Theater doing a stand-up routine he's been developing for the past year or so. In one of the jokes, I'm sure Forrest told better, I'd love to have an electric car.

10:42 I can't afford one. I DM'd Elon Musk to ask him if he'd give me a Cybertruck. He got back to me. He asked me if I knew anywhere to get ketamine. We've started the conversation. We're on our way. I'm sure he told it better. He explained, I was a marine biologist for almost a decade and a half, and I saw firsthand how difficult it was to get people to be emotionally connected to subjects like habitat destruction or climate change or plastic pollution, things like that. I wrote this show. He explains, branded Swedish fish in an individual single-use plastic. Got a very good deal from a company in China. Advertises having very low lead levels. I was pretty excited about that. Unfortunately, on the way over, the shipping container fell into the Pacific. Shaw said there was a point where he felt the planet was doomed. He was surprised to find that writing and performing this show has changed his mind. He said, It's crazy to think that in making this show, I thought it would be depressing. I'd have more hope in making it, and I'm excited to tell people that.

11:30 Forrest Shaw. And that is your comedy news for today. I'll see you tomorrow.