Michael Che’s ‘Shot in Minnesota,’ Dane Cook on Betrayal, and Nick Cannon’s Late-Night Return

0:03 Calaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mac with your daily comedy news. Michael Che's new special is titled Shot in Minnesota. He spoke with MPR, not NPR, MPR. Some people thought it would cover the police killings of Dante Wright and Philando Castile or the killings of Rene Good and Alex Preddy by federal agents earlier this year during Operation Metro Surge. Che said, it's not necessarily about those people individually. You have to be very careful in making jokes about things like that and keeping the mood up for a special. You know, it's a comedy special. I didn't want to invoke those names in a joking way and sort of kill what we're trying to do. But it's really more about the frustration of what's happening as opposed to the nuts and bolts of everything that's ever happened.

0:48 Minneapolis comedian Comrade Trip commented, I love more than a wink. A wink is a dog whistle that even less people can understand. That stigma of corruption and fraud propagating that is not helpful. That said, Trip said he has seen Che form a connection with Minnesota. Trip said whenever he's in town, he does support the local independently run comedy venues. The same can't be said for any other comedian of that caliber. One name comes to mind, but I'm not going to shade that particular comedian. Deadline asked Dane Cook, how long did the whole thing with your brother leave you in a dark place? Dane said, I didn't think I was in a dark place until I realized I was. When it happened, I thought, I'm the son of George Cook. My dad's an athlete. He's a winner. And I kind of picked myself up and kept going. I kept going and touring my career at that point. I was not the bell of the ball anymore. My moment was a beautiful moment, but it was settling. I didn't realize until about three or four years later that I wasn't the same person by way of this. I think I had lost a little bit of my own identity in terms of my communication with fans. So it wasn't maybe until around 2015 or 16 that I was like, you know, I'm working and functioning, but I'm not complete. And when I'm not complete, it's because I ran away from that moment.

1:52 Now it's time for me to really face it and share it. This next part is fascinating to me. A question people ask me a lot, me being Dane Cook, is that must have really messed with your trust. And actually, for reasons that are beyond me, it didn't. I think just being in an industry that's already filled with peril, whether it was bad bookings, bad managers, bad deals. I've been through the gauntlet of what happens when you put your heart on the line and put yourself out there in the spotlight. So I guess I was thick-skinned in that regard. Yeah, there's a lot of not-awesome people in the entertainment industry. I think that's what Dane is getting at there. Dane said, but for betrayal and how that was jarring when my brother was out of my life, the opposite happened because he sort of veiled me in a negative cloak. Once he was gone, it was almost like another moment when you get a toothache fixed almost immediately. Not only are you relieved, but you're ready to go.

2:33 You're ready to work. You're just like, ah, thank you. The Butler Collegian asked Ali Sadiq, do you think the internet has changed comedy for the worse or the better? Sadiq said, the worst, really. I think that every skill set is starting to understand that that's what it did. At first, it was this whole, everyone's a comedian. Every person that makes somebody laugh is a comedian. Everybody was okay with it. But if you cook something on the internet, that doesn't make you a chef. If you do an interview with somebody, it doesn't make you a journalist. So now people are starting to understand. If you decide that you're going to go somewhere... You're going to try on clothes from different places. That doesn't constitute being a model. Now that other people's skill sets have been infiltrated, they understand that it's not the same muscle. I think the internet has created this idea. It's easy to do anything. You don't actually have to go to school for it. You don't actually have to be in the industry. You don't have to do it. Turn your phone on and whatever you say you are, you are. Crowd work in my era was something you did when you didn't have material.

3:19 It's like when you didn't have material, it's the easiest thing to do. I know people will try to say different, but it literally takes me no brain power to do crowd work because I'm not doing anything but saying where you went to school. Would you just set where you work at, where you all met? That's a general question. Now I'm interviewing the audience. It's so easy that it becomes frustrating that you put it as part of the craft. It's like painting by numbers and then saying, this is a Van Gogh, this is a Picasso. Nope, you painted by numbers. I'm from an era where people could critique people for the best. If somebody said, hey, man, this is your best special, I would disagree because I don't know what my best special is yet. I'm still working. I'm not a finished product. They asked him any greats they wanted to shout out. He said, I hate that a lot of them are dead. Carol Burnett, who's not dead, is great. If I ever had the opportunity to sit with her, I would. Cosby is a great. If I ever had the opportunity, I would sit down with him.

4:03 I had the opportunity to sit down with D.O. Hughley. That's one of my mentors. And Don Rickles, if he was alive, I would sit down with Don Rickles, Sammy Davis Jr. for different reasons, you know, or Rodney Dangerfield. I would love to sit down with Rodney Dangerfield. His advice for the younger generation, don't skip any of the steps. The craziest thing is they'll idolize somebody who did all the steps. To know the fundamentals of how this craft works is to navigate through those hard places, which gives you a better understanding of the craft. The process is in the mistakes. BET is getting back into the late-night game with Nick Cannon. They announced Nick Cannon at Night will premiere Tuesday at 10 East, 9 Central. New episodes weekly for an initial 10-week run. The series expands on Nick Cannon's video podcast of the same name, says Late Nighter, and builds itself as a new spin on the genre.

4:47 Rather than doing monologues and topical stuff, Nick Cannon at Night centers on love, sex, dating, relationships, and other subjects that you don't see on those other late-night shows. Nick Cannon at Night has been on YouTube since 2025, taped in L.A. The show was pitched from the start as a reinvention of the late night talk show. Scottish comedian Daniel Sloss enjoys America. He's bringing his family along on his U.S. tour. When it comes to Arizona, he said, We get to do it on a tour bus. That means my kids get to see America and I get to spend time with them. When my family's with me, it means I get to be dad all day. Then I'm not really thinking about the show. He says, if you've never seen me, and even if you have seen me, this is a little update with everything that I've done.

5:29 Growing up, he was encouraged to get into comedy by his parents. My parents said, why don't you give this a go? There are stand-up comedy courses you could take. It was awkward because it was me and a bunch of 30 and 40-year-old men who were divorced and trying something really different. At 19, he was the youngest comedian to do a solo session in London's West End. A year later, he released a stand-up comedy DVD. Then he was on Conan and Ferguson. He said, my mom and dad had to drive me to my first 70 gigs. Every car ride home, they'd say, this worked better last time. Or you seemed a bit nervous. That new stuff didn't go well. They're comedy fans. They saw everything. He toured relentlessly until that pesky COVID thing. He said, I'd spent so many years being Daniel Sloss, the stage person. I didn't know how to just be Daniel. I didn't know how to have a hobby like a normal person. Back to America, he said, I think one of the dumbest criticisms that Europeans have about Yanks is that they don't travel.

6:16 I think the stat is like only 40% of Americans have passports. My thought is, have you been to America? You can experience everything. If you want to see high, beautiful mountains, great. Go north to Colorado. If you want to see the desert, head to Arizona. Do you want to see forests, wilderness, cities? I think even the most well-traveled American in America would tell you there's no way you'll ever get to see all that. I love it there, and I want to teach my kids to love it in the same way I do. Yeah, dude, Los Angeles. Head two hours in whatever direction, you can get pretty much all those things. L.A. is a great time. Atlanta-born stand-up comedian Mandel has a new comedy release. Now, it's got a complicated title for me to read out loud. It is The Dollar Sign Six Times in a Row. Luckily, the press release tells me to pronounce it as Dollar Sign. Okay.

6:59 He's doing a 12-hour live-streamed event leading up to the premiere of his album. He's all set for an October 25th, 9 p.m. Eastern live-stream premiere. Co-produced by Donald Glover's Media Company. Dollar Sign appears Bundell's charmingly odd humor with the look and feel of a golden age comedy special from the 70s and classic late night TV. Sounds awesome, actually. His storytelling, spinning tales of friendship and growing older is so effortless that the room feels like a living room and everyone in it feels like an old friend. Bundell said, This stand-up comedy program is my beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy, my fantasy of me and another universe. All right, so on October 25th, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., it's a 12-hour live stream, then the premiere of the Dollar Sign special.

7:41 The live stream is called the Dollar Sign Call-A-Thon, the goal to reach one million pledge views for the premiere. The Call-A-Thon will unfold like an increasingly chaotic variety show featuring several bits, including a Monopoly game with Big Boy and Sleepy Brown, a live game show, and a yeek dance tournament. Johnny Mac says as if he has any idea what that is. He'll look it up in a second. The call-a-thon will culminate in the world premiere of Dollar Sign, etc., etc. Dollar Sign will also have an audio release both digitally and on gold vinyl. Hey, maybe even Sebastian Maniscalco will play it. Probably not. The guy needs time. Give Sebastian time. You think it's easy to just drag a comedy clip into a log and have it play on the radio five minutes from now? It's not. Sebastian needs time, okay?

8:26 Get off Sebastian's case. That is your comedy news for today. See you tomorrow.