Robby Hoffman, Chris Fleming and Hannah Gadsy. Quirky Sunday!

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. Hey, I'm in a good mood. I'm Johnny Mack with your daily comedy news, A daily briefing on stand up comedy comedians in the comedy industry. A sentence to the algorithm. Just loves why in a good mood, John Well. Pete Holmes I thought was fantastic. If you missed yesterday's episode, I just loved talking to Pete Holmes. I'm still thinking about it three days later by the time you hear this. Pete was just so gracious with his time and just what a cool guy to hang out with. I also just recorded Comedy Survivor, which will come out tomorrow at noon Eastern, and the results are incredible and the AI analysis even better. I can't wait for you to hear Comedy Survivor. And it was actually fifty degrees out yesterday, not fifty below zero, and actual fifty like you could go outside and leave your house.

0:52 Can you imagine? The Washington Post profiled Robbie Hoffman. I think a lot of us came away was that December really impressed with Robbie Hoffman's John Mlaney produced a special. The Post writes, Robbie Hoffman is not on TikTok, which is surprising for comedian these days until you meet her and realize she might be the oldest thirty six year old on the planet. Robbie says, my friends, go, are you mental? Why don't you do this clip and post it on TikTok? I said, I have one of the apps I have Instagram. I was born as seventy three year old man her origin story. She left accounting for a writing gig on the Chris Getherd Ship. For that show, she moved back to New York City despite having been born in the city. She told the Post, I felt like a tourist in many ways. She had only known the four square blocks of her religious enclav up until that point. She said, this was my first time seeing New York too. During the pandemic, she crossed paths with Paul W. Downs, the co creator and star of the TV show hacks Downs, remembered being struck by how unfiltered Robbie Hoffman could be. Robbie eventually guest starred on hacks Down. Said, the whole show's about people who are cast aside by the industry. We wanted Robbie to fit into that tapestry of people on the outside looking in. The post tells us though in real life the industry likes Hoffman, she'll be back on Hacks. She's also part of Rooster. Now.

2:04 Rooster is interesting. It is a Bill Lawrence project. You know Bill Lawrence, the guy from Scrubbs and Ted Lasso. He knows what he's doing. Rooster stars Steve Carell, you know, the guy from the Office. And the reason John C McGinley isn't in many of the Scrubs episodes is because he's working on Rooster. All right, So it's HBO, Bill Lawrence, Steve Carell and Robbie Hoffman and John C McGinley. That's gotta be good, right on paper, that's like amazing, right, better be good. I don't think Bill Lawrence is missed yet, so looking forward to that one. John mulaney is quoted in this article. He said of Robbie Hoffman has not taken into consideration any rules or accepted wisdom on show business.

2:46 And to bring it back home, Hoffman said, I've never been the overnight success. I've always been the slow and stead he wins the race kind. We may have waited a little longer, we didn't do the TikTok pop off or whatever, but we did it in a way that felt good. Meanwhile, Chris Fleming, did you enjoy Chris Flaming Special on HBO on Friday Night? Chris Fleming got the fancy schmancy New York Times profile. Mike Birbiglia said, Chris is one of the most exciting comedians to watch right now, and interestingly didn't accuse Chris Fleming of ripping off John Mulaney. I don't know why you would do that, but you know it's something Berbiglia sometimes does. I don't see it. We learned from the Times that Chris Fleming got his start doing stand up and finding his exaggerated style at a club above a Chinese restaurant in Harvard Square. He recalls being at a bookstore next door and looking over rockstar photos Mick Jagger, Prince Stevie Nicks, Freddie Mercury, Big pictures of these people rocking out, and I was like, how do I bring that to one hundred person cap room.

3:38 Since wearing hoodies was out, I gotta wear bird armor. I love it. By the way, you caught on Friday's Comedy stock Market, we said buy some Chris Fleming. I hope you bought some Chris Fleming, because just minutes later the New York Times did a big profile here. I'm also sitting on the Chris Fleming press. People earn their money on Friday. I kicked it to in the middle of the week in case I have the jury duty. Have I mentioned that you never know when have to pre tape an episode at midnight so you can spend the day in Newark? I digress. Conan O'Brien and Chris Flemings did a whole interview. We'll get to that in time. So if you bought stock and Chris Fleming on Friday, per the Comedy Stock Market recommendation, you're doing quite well right now. Chris explains he sometimes choreographs his routines by drawing them, but doesn't watch himself. He finds the humor from the audience. He explains a lot of what I put out on social media, I'm doing it for the first time. In an improv dance class, he learned, don't do something unless you feel the impulse to do it.

4:30 It has to be organic. Good description. Here. Fleming's routines are densely layered confections of references, space movies, college life, animal encounters, the economy confetied with digressions, and Bonker's turns a phrase. One song at dance Routine is about why a young professional had a tasteful made well sweater was the most terrorizing thing at a haunted house at a skyward rechion. People are always laughing. What a great paragraph there in New York Times. Fleming also has a competitive body fearlessness. We learn from The Times. Fleming said, I love putting as much weight as I can on the stool. I love drop kicking and flanling different ways. To this day, I leave every performance completely bruised. Are you guys listening going? What's going on with the show? He's been in a good mood for like four days? Did Scrubs completely changed my life? Can I get back to being Curmudgeonty? More wonderful writing here in the Times? Chris is somewhere between six foot one and six foot three, with a long legged hips wivel that can make them appear even taller.

5:25 When he frog leaps or tumbles over a chair, flieser laps around the stage, there's an element of controlled danger, a glam firecracker on the loose. Oh yeah. Vulture also profiled Chris Fleming. Let me bounce this as well, because we you know, I like to fix up the topics. I don't want to do ten minutes like Chris Fleming. I love Chris Fleming, but this thing's quite long here. It must have been comedian week in the big newspapers. Back to the Washington Post, they caught up with Hannah Gatsby and we learned that Hannah has broken up with the Netflix is. Hannah explains, Netflix was a launching pad for me, and I'm very thankful for it. But I'm creatively a risk taker, and I like to take things apart and rearrange them to do things differently. I don't want to go with the flow right now. The flow seems quite toxic. But Netflix, being an algorithmic first machine, they've worked out what comedy is. Now they've got the formula, and that doesn't actually give a lot of space. The Post said, Well, the formula is to pump out endless specials for which they've paid a lot of money. That's the formula you're talking about. Hannah said, I don't want to be there. I don't want to live there. It's not to say that I can't won't work with them again.

6:21 I just wanted to make a decision and take some creative risks, and also a lot of the subjects that I talk about in Wolf and the placement of myself, I wanted to put myself outside of that particular story. Hannah's out promoting Woof. The audio to woof is free online with a twenty minute video version that features hannagas By speaking through an animated sock puppet. They asked about the sock puppet thing. Hanna said, every decision is almost like what is the algorithm? Wan, I'll do the opposite. Now, this is an interesting show. Today. I've talked about three comedians, Hannah Gadsby, Chris Fleming, and Robbie Hoffman. And of the three comedians I've talked about, Robbie Hoffman is the most mainstream comedian. I like the alty stuff. The Washington Post was speaking on Zoom with Hannah Gatsby. Hannah was in Tasmania.

7:06 I love details like that. We learned that Wolf was originally going to be about the death of Hannah's father. Hanna explains, Yeah, and the dead Dad's show is a universal show, particularly for people of a certain age when you start to think about your mortality. But as I realized as I was going through this, I'm the only person on earth who hasn't adapted to my fame. I was a creature of the Milbourn International Comedy Festival, in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Every year I'd write a show, maybe it gets to tour a little bit, then the next year I'd set it down right another one. I'm pushing forty. I'm not thinking about cracking in the US market or having high powered agents in LA And then all of a sudden it was more than possible. And I was so ill equipped for that good follow up by the post who asked what was the biggest challenge of all that? And the answer the change in my audience. My audience beforehand were definitely people I was talking to in the room. I was a live performer that had slowly built a solid, sustainable fan base that'd bring a new piece of work to every year, maybe every two years.

7:55 I was making a living. Was in the scheme of things modest, but I was successful. Then the net happens and my agents said, are we going to give up? For a stadium tour. I wouldn't survive that. I don't want to be in a crowd of thirty thousand people, and I don't want to talk to thirty thousand people. Music can work it well in a large crowd, but that's where comedy goes to die. When you get to those big venues. The last don't come back. They disappear out the back. I don't want to sell tickets to the Apocalypse, and that's what it feels like. It feels gross. I don't actually cast judgment, it's just what they're doing. They can do it. Power to them. If you want to be a court jester to the Saudi regime, go for it. Some news news on a Sunday, Jeff Ross is one man show. Take a Banana for the Ride. We'll be on Netflix. Hanna Gatsby's not gonna like that. On March twenty fourth. You can watch you Take a Banana for the Ride. We see Jeff Ross sharing personal stories about his upbringing, family, loss, resilience, and how humor has carried him through tough times. I just made a Hannahatsby joke, But isn't that pretty much what Hannah Gatsby does?

8:46 Maybe Hannah and Jeff Ross could be friends. I don't know. I was just riffing on the Netflix of it all. Hulu still into the Ralph Barbosa business. They announced a new project titled swamp Meat, a half hour series created by Ralph Barbosa and comedy animation writer Isaac Gonzalez. This will be a cartoon. Ralph Barbosa voice stars and serves as an executive producer. Swap Meet coming to Hulu. If you're in La, go check out the Henson Puppets. They are doing improv comedy in puppet Up Uncensored. Puppet Up Uncensored combines the style of puppetry originated by Jim Henson with improv comedy games fueled by audience prompts. It can get raunchy, he said, don't bring your kids. You know.

9:27 There are no official muppets, but we're told the production includes recreations of several original Jim Henson puppets from early in his career. And it's Brian Henson that created this thing, so it's not like this is totally rogue. Brian Henson says of the recreations, they're really old. It's super fun to rebuild those puppets and actually perform those scenes in front of a live audience. That hasn't happened in forty to fifty years. Probably. We're told that Henson puppets are tailored for the camera, but in Puppet Up, uncensored audience members see both the stage for screen performance on video projection, and you also get to see the puppeteers work in a way that's usually hidden from view. Henson said, it's really fun to let people see how we do it because it's clever and it's chaotic. It also means our audience watches the show in a different kind of way.

10:07 Hanson was asked about the Muppet Show. I haven't gotten around to that yet, but people seem to really liked that. That was back Henson's take. The AI craze has created a backlash of please let me see human craftsmanship, human artistry, where I know this is coming from a human artistic mind. So I think right now there's just this enormous appreciation for artistry that's not computer generated in any way. That'll benefit all sorts of arts, but it certainly benefits puppetry for sure. That your comedy news on a Sunday catch you back in the morning,