Aug. 22, 2026

Robert Schimmel: Confessional Stand-Up, Cancer, Howard Stern and a Comic’s Comic Legacy

Show Notes
Transcript

Johnny Mac spotlights comedian Robert Schimmel as part of Saturday deep dives on comics who peaked before YouTube and podcasts. He describes Schimmel’s brutally confessional style—turning tragedies like his 11-year-old son’s leukemia death and his own stage-three non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma into jokes—and recounts Schimmel’s improbable life, including marrying and divorcing the same woman three times, later marrying his daughter’s best friend during chemotherapy, and dying at 60 from a 2010 Scottsdale car accident while awaiting a liver transplant. Mac traces Schimmel’s career: Bronx upbringing, Rodney Dangerfield’s 1986 HBO Young Comedian’s Special boost, Showtime specials, writing for In Living Color, frequent Howard Stern appearances, and a Fox sitcom pilot “Schimmel” canceled after his cancer diagnosis. Mac shares a SiriusXM story about Schimmel swapping stories on-air with David Brenner and cites Schimmel’s specials, memoir, Fresh Air interview, and Comedy Central Top 100 recognition.

00:00 Deep Dive Setup
00:53 Tragedy Into Comedy
03:05 Early Life Breakthrough
03:50 Dangerfield Special Clip
04:35 Career Highlights
05:16 Sitcom Then Cancer
06:57 Stern And Sirius Years
07:38 Raw Dog Lobby Story
10:45 Legacy And Conan Clip

12:44 Old Episode Stories
19:01 Cancer And Faith Bits
21:10 Carlin And Jackie Mason

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Callaroga Shock Media.

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Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack, and we picked up a

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lot of new listeners this week. So what I've been

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doing on Saturday's or deep dives on specific tomics, specific comedians.

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Last week I did Ralphie May. And my point here

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is I'm trying to highlight comedians from earlier this century

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who came along a little too early for modern YouTube

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or social media and podcasts, and these guys died young

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and would have been awesome. One of them I would

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consider a friend Robert Shimmel, who I got to spend

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a decent amount of time with at serious exam early

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in my run there. So that's what we're doing today.

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A normal episode in the feed tomorrow. But today let's

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talk about Robert Shimmel, who was fantastic and his life,

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his life story. If you made it up, you wouldn't

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believe it. There's a thing that happens sometimes in stand

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up comedy where comedians life is so strange and so

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specifically pain that the material rights itself and the only

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question is where the comedian has the nerve and the

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craft to stand in front of a room and say

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it out loud. Most comedians who have access to that

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kind of material, find ways to soften it, keep something

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of a private, let the audience know it's there without

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fully handing it over. Robert Schimmel was not most comedians.

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His son died of leukemia at eleven years old. Robert

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talked about it on stage. Robert himself was diagnosed with

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stage three non Hodgkins lymphoma, and on the day the

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oncologist told him, in a room with his parents and

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his wife, he found the joke and the doctor's explanation

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before it even left the office.

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I'm in my doctor's office with my mom and dad.

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Mycologist comes in tells me that I have non Hodgkins lymphomi.

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He said, there's Hopkins disease and non Hoskins and then

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he says, if you're open minded, you might consider marijuana

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because it helps with the nausea and the appetite. And

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my parents are sitting there devastated with my diagnosis, and

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I'm thinking this is a dream come true. I got

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a guy at Mayo clinic telling my parents I got

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smoke pot.

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Where were you?

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Twenty five years ago?

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Shimill married and divorce the same woman three times. During chemotherapy,

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he fell in love with his daughter's best friend. She

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came to visit him in the hospital and became his

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second wife. Robert was sixty years old and waiting for

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a liver transplant when his daughter was driving him through Scottsdale, Arizona.

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She swerved to avoid another car and the vehicle flipped.

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His son and daughter survived. Robert Schimmel died from the

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injuries ten days later, on September third, twenty ten. It's

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kind of like Sam Kinnison. If you had guessed how

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these people would go, you wouldn't have guessed car accident.

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Chimmell had all kinds of cancer, and that it was

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a car is just crazy to me. I didn't realize

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he was sixty. I thought he was younger. Robert Schimmell

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turned every single piece of his life into colmy that

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made people laugh and feel and occasionally have to put

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their hand over their mouth because the laugh on the

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horror were arriving simultaneously. The actual skill was taking the

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most brutal and specific facts of one particular life and

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making them not just funny but generous, making an audience feel,

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by laughing at his pain, that their pain was survivable

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and laughable. Too. Robert shim Well, born in the Bronx,

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New York City in nineteen fifty, grew up there. His

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sister pushed him to do an open mic night. How

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many times have we heard a version of that story

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Shimill did. It worked well enough that a club owner

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in LA offered him a regular spot. So he moved

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to LA and found that the club had burned down

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before he got there. That kind of bad luck where

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the universe appears to be personally invested in thwarting. You

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followed Robert Shimmell around for his entire life. His big

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break came in nineteen eighty six when Rodney Dangerfield invited

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him to perform on the HBO Young Comedian special.

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There's a guy. I don't know where he's from, and

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I don't care. He really makes me laugh. All right,

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give it up for Robert Shimman. Okay, Robert.

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Floyd, he gave a comedian. I used to work for

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the Drug Hotline. That's a lot of fun. People call

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Real Stone to get to play with their heads. Drug Hotline.

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I'm freaking out on LSD. Gee, I'm sorry the guy.

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Do you want to talk to? What was that?

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Listen?

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You haven't real scary hallucinations. Yeah, seeing like pigs eating

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your face. Now that you mention it, yes, you don't worry.

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The spiders will kill them. If you ever want to

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have fun with somebody that's really stoned, all you gotta

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say is it me? Or is it getting hard to breathe? In?

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Here they go.

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Rodney Dangerfield's taste was impeccable and his endorsement met something

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specific back in those days. Appearing on that special put

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you in front of an industry that was paying close

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attention to who Rodney thought was worth watching. Shimmell made

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the most of it. He got some specials on Showtime Hardcore,

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in the Big Apple, Guilty is Charged, and became known

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what the industry calls a comics comic. That is high praise.

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That is the designation for someone who's peers think is

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funnier than their public profiles. Yes they should be, Shimill

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wrote for a Living Color he was on Howard Stern regularly,

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and then after two thousand and six, I think is

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the math there when Howard was up as serious that

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would bring Shimmel into the building, which is where I

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got to know him. Talking about that in a bit

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Shimmell was named stand Up of the Year at the

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American Comedy Awards. I remember those then. Fox Green lad

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a sitcom based on his life titled Shimmel whoa.

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Now you may feel a little pressure. Yeah, on the

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roof of my mouth. Get it out. Let's relax. Oh

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that's beautiful. So who are you liking the playoffs? What

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do you get the game on that thing?

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Doctor Rothman needs a consultation online.

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One that's not what you think. Yeah, that's what everybody says.

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Hey Phil, Oh yeah I can talk.

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No he can't. Ye, he's very busy.

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Fell addrestment opportunity. I'm listening. Hmm, hold on a sick

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if you could buy boats online, would you ro just

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stick the phone up my ass and we can confidence.

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His daughters were played by Vicki Davis and a young

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actress named Brie Larson. The pilot was shot, sets were built,

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marketing was being planned, and during the insurance physical for

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the production, doctors found stage three non Hodgkins lymphoma. Fox

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put the show on hiatus. The chemotherapy made production impossible.

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Fox eventually canceled the show. So what did shim Will do?

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He put the cancer into the act. He talked about

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losing his hair, about the specific indignities of chemotherapy, about

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falling in love with his daughter's best friend in a

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hospital because she visited and he was lying there with

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nothing to dow but noticed she was kind and funny

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and beautiful. When he married her, she was four years

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older than his daughter Jessica. Talked about all that on stage,

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including how weird it was and how much explain it

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all required. The Howard Stern part is super important. Howard

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was a dominant force back in the early two thousands.

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Shimill worked on the show because he wasn't trying to

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be transgressive. Stern show rewarded the thing Robert Shimmill was doing,

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which was telling the complete truth about his own life

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without editing on Stern. The more specific and the more

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honest and the more uncomfortable, the better. And Robert Shimmell

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had a specific, honest, uncomfortable set of material than almost

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anyone Howard Stern ever put on the air. Because Robert's

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actual life kept generating it faster than he could use it,

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their audiences overlapped in the years of regular Howard Stern

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appearances built Robert Shimmel a following that was unusually loyal,

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unusually mail, and unusually invested in his specific brand of

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confessional comedy. So I got too serious to run the

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comedy channels two thousand and four or so. And in

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those early days, Robert would come up frequently and come

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over and do the Raw Dog Channel. And I remember

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one particular story with Robert. So at serious, a lot

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of stars would come through and, like any place, sometimes

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a lobby, because you know, I'm not gonna stand in

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the lobby waiting for Robert Shimmel to show up, So

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you know, you take the elevator up and you tell

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the receptionists you're here to see John mcdermotter, whoever you're

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here to see. So one day in the lobby, Robert

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Schimmel meets David Brenner. Younger listeners may not know. David Brenner,

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a great comedian who had his peak fame in the

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seventies and eighties and also a regular Howard Stern guest.

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Was also one of the primary guest hosts for The

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Tonight Show in the Johnny Carson era before Joan Rivers

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kind of took that gig anyway, So I'm there and

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my coworker Phil is there and Shimmel and David Brenner

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start swapping stories and we go, hold on, can we

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do this on the air? And they both agree to

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come back the next day and swap stories. So we

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put them in the fish Bowl Studio, which is the

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big studio in the lobby which has all glass and

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that's where you would do show off shows. And we

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set up two like old timey stand mics like what

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Bob Hope would use in the forties, and two stools,

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and Shimmel and David Brenner did an hour of radio

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just swapping stories. Now, when I left over a decade ago,

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the tape still existed. I hope whoever took over my

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office didn't lose that tape because it was fantastic. Let

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me see if that's online. I don't think it is,

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because that was pre like YouTube, Ron Dog Shimmel Brinner. No,

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there's no video. I don't even see the press release,

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but you can see this happened. I'm on Howard Stern

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dot com and on June seventeenth, two thousand and five,

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they posted Robert Shimmel stop by tosing in for the news,

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et cetera, et cetera. Shimill said he was there to

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do a show with David Brinner. So it did happen

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in two thousand and five. You know what, I came

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up here? I forgot I did this apparently on February

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twenty sixth, twenty twenty two, I did an episode called

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Robert Shimmel's Story. So when you're done here, go back

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and listen to that one. See what version of the

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story I told Maybe I'll just tag that onto the

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Why don't you just do that, John, I will tag

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that onto the end of this episode and save everybody

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some work since I obviously have the audio. Oh that's funny.

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Did we learn doing this show? Where were we?

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Oh? Yeah?

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So yeah. So Shimmel and Berner came up and swapped

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stories for an hour and it was fan fantastic. Shimmell's

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a really good guy, always like super nice to work with,

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Like I like working with a pro who has like

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no attitude and it's just there to do the work

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and like just no airs about him. And Robert Shimmel

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was a great guy. His specials Unprotected in nineteen ninety nine.

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Life since then in two thousand and eight, Shimmel since

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he'd been gone in two thousand and nine. Are all

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documentaries of his actual life. He wrote a memoir called

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Cancer on five Dollars a Day and in parentheses chemo

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not included. That got him onto NPR's Fresh Air. Comedy

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Central named him one of the one hundred greatest stand

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up comedians of all time. We'll have to revisit that

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list every now and then, but sure, why not? That

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puts Robert in a group of names that most people

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can recite from memory, and in a group of names

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that should come up more often than they do. The

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reason he comes up less often is the same reason

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and they were off he May conversation goes the same way.

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There is a specific kind of legacy that the comedy

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industry is better preserving than others. The comedian who had

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the hit sitcom gets remembered through the sitcom. The comedian

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who with the viral special gets remembered through the algorithm.

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The comedian whose career was built on live rooms Robert Shimmel,

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Ralphie May and radio appearances and a confessional act. That

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comedian's legacy depends on people actively arguing for it. There's

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a clip of Shimmel and Conan from the nineties that

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gets passed around occasionally, and then people who find it

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for the first time say some version the same thing,

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which is why didn't I know about this guy? My

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next yes HBO special Unprotected, premieres this Saturday at ten

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o'clock PM. Please welcome a very funny guy, one of

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our favorites, Robert Shimmel.

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Thank you, thank you very much. My wife and I

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just had a brand new baby, and oh thanks, thank you.

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I'm very excited because for the whole pregnancy she didn't

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want to have sex. I mean every time I wanted

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to try it, and we're in bed, you know, She's like, well,

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I don't feel attractive. I said, believe it or not,

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my penis has real poor vision. Actually he's legally blind.

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Only women think.

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Like that, not guys.

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I mean really, I mean I got with her and

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I go, come on, honey, you think tonight, And she goes,

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I'm too fat. What guy would be like that if

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your wife said, hey, tonight, you think you want to

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do it? Nah, I'm too fat to do it, honey.

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So I'm laying in bed with her, you know, I'm

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on the road a lot performing and she said she said,

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you know, can I ask you something? She said, you know,

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you've been on the road for like three weeks. She said,

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have you been taking care of yourself? I said, yeah,

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I'm masturbated a couple of times. She said masturbate. I'm

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talking about eating right and exercising.

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Why is any more famous? What happened? What happened is

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Robert Shimill never got the sitcom. Robert Shimmell. I would

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call him a friend. Again. We weren't best friends, but

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like good guy to work with. And here let me

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dust off that other episode from how many years ago? Now,

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I can't do math four years ago? And let's see

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what Johnny Mack said back in twenty twenty two. Here's

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past me and I'll see you tomorrow. With a normal episode,

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Today's episode is going to be a lot naughtier than usual.

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I won't use any particularly sweary words, but the topics

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are going to be quite adult. So if you listen

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to the podcast on a daily business would say children

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or a nun or your mom, Why don't you bail?

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On today's episode, I'm going to talk about Robert George Shimmel,

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one of my favorite comedians and someone I knew personally.

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There's a fantastic interview and a website called mister Media

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that I'm going to pick at. I'll do a lot

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from that on the back end, but a quick story

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up top here. Robert told mister Media. I went to

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go see Rodney Dangerfield in Vegas and my mom and

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dad were there, and I want him to my parents

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to meet Rodney because I thought, you know what, They're

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gonna meet Rodney and they think he's really funny. They've

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seen him on Ed Sullivan, on Tonight's Show and on

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Mike Douglas, and they're gonna really believe that I'm in

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show business for real. So we go to see a show.

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My dad's a real early bird. He goes to bed

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at like nine at night. So I go up to

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the dressing room with just my mom and I knock

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on the door and Rodney and where I'm not making

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this up. Rodney opens the door. He's wearing a silk

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robe that has playing cards on it, with his stuff

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hanging out, no underwear just out of the crack of

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his robe. He had a joint in one hand and

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a Miller light in the other, and he said, hey,

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you got to be Bob's mom. I'm like, you gotta

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be kidding me. That's not what I wanted my mom

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to see. And he started hitting on my mom. He said,

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where's your husband? She said, oh, he went to bed.

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Rodney goes, what are you doing later? Baby? From The

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Observer in nineteen ninety nine, Robert Schimmel was remembering the

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day that Barry Diller had resigned from twentieth Century Fox

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back in nineteen ninety two. A lot of set up there,

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But this will make sense to you, Robert said. On

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that night, I did a big industry showcase in La,

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where you go in front of everybody, ABC, CBS, NBC, Disney, Sony, Warner, Fox,

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and my opening line was, I have such bad timing

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in this business. I blew Barry Diller last night. My

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agent came over to me and said, are you out

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of your effing mind? Shimo says, why. The agent says,

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because the guy can make a phone call and I

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won't even be in show business anymore. Blow someone else.

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If Dielor finds out, he's gonna go nuts. Shimmel said,

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why would he go nuts? I'm blowing him at that sign.

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Back in ninety ninety then a forty nine year old

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Robert Shimmel was described as the guy where people go, hey,

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come here, you gotta hear this, and with the book

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said yeah, but where's he going with that kind of material. Shimmel,

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a man with a shaved head, cool suit and eyes

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that look like they're channeling the collective disbelief of his

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native Bronx, told jokes that often work like defibllerator battles.

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When his wife wonders if Robert Shimmel is suffering from

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premature ejaculation, he replies, does it look like I'm suffering?

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Those aren't tears on your belly? After getting nitrous oxide

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from his deaentist, mister Shimmel hears him say Robert, you're

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gonna feel a little prick in your mouth, and Shimal says,

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I'm not that messed up yet. From that observer piece,

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Shimmel has a lot of heavyweight fans in the comedy business.

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He's been on Conan six times in two years. Steve

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Martin wrote the liner notes to Shimmel CD. If you

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buy the CD, I can get this car. Howard Stern,

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the comedian, on a number of times when Shimmell was

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on Stern around this time, he talked about the allergic

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reaction he had to a spermicide that his wife was using.

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He described it as like having intercourse with a calzone.

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The observer continues. If actor Jason Alexander was not a

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fan before the October first Friars Club roost of Jerry Stiller,

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he must be one now. Alexander dies spit take. During

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Shimmel's set, Shimmell had started off by saying mister Stiller

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had played Angela Lansbury's sea word in murder, she wrote.

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Shimal then stopped and quickly corrected himself by saying he

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meant to say cousin. Shimill said, Jason Alexander's lawyer called

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me and told me that Jason had called him after

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the roast and said I had made him use his

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asthma spray. Yet, even though Shimmel killed, some even felt

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he should have closed the roast. His entire performance was

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cut out of the hour long version of the roast

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that aired on Comedy Central a few weeks later. Shimmell

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said he didn't find this out until he had both

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of his parents over to watch the show. It's a

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bizarre thing to be treated like that, he was cut

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because of the time restraints that. Shimmel said, that's the

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worst thing that happens to me. Then I'm in pretty

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good shape. Shimmell then went somewhere else in the interview.

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He says, the next time you go to a drug store,

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you gotta look at this on the box of the

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fleet enema. This shows you how stupid they think we

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really are. It says caution in big broad letters, remove

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the orange tip off the bottle before inserting into the rectum,

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which means that somebody actually stuck that up their button,

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squeezed the bottle and shot the cap up into their

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spleen and had to go to the emergency room. Then

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Shimmell fired off a series of discussions he swore he'd

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had with celebrities. Shimmel said, I went up to Jane Fonda.

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I met her at some party with Ted Turner. I

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walked over her and said, Ms Fonda, I don't want

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to bother you, but I just want to say that

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my wife's favorite movie is Fried Green Tomatoes. She said,

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I wasn't in that. I said, I know, but that's

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our favorite movie. She looked at me like, what is

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your problem. I love doing stuff like that because celebrities,

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when you mess with them like that, you're always expecting

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to suck up, and when you don't do it, they

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don't know how to react. He talked about a time

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he was sitting at a table with Milton Burrell, Caesar Romero,

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and another actor who had play I Had a Doctor

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on a nineteen sixty sitcom. The actor who played the

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doctor was with a young man who he introduced as

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his ward. Shimmel said, Ward, what are you, Bruce Wayne?

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Your ward? You mean the kid you're having sex with?

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Anyone else here? Have award? Tonight? At the awards dinner,

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they were sitting with Joseph Cotton, who won an award

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for Citizen Kane, pretty famous movie. Cotton comes by and

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Shimal says, mister Cotton, I know tonight's your night, but

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I just want to tell you I've seen Citizen Kane

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like thirty five times and I don't get it. The

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whole thing was about a sled man. You're lucky you

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made that movie then, because I'll tell you today that

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crap wouldn't fly. There's no special effects, and it turns

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out to be a sled At the end, nobody's getting

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laid I got to know Robert a little bit. He

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would come up too serious a lot in the early

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days of my run and there running Serious XM comedy.

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Really really nice guy. When he wasn't performing, he was

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pretty low key, but you'd have a conversation with him,

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and in his natural delivery, he would just say things

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that were jokes and would take a second to react to, like, wait,

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did you just say the most absurd thing. In two

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thousand and eight, he spoke to Terry Gross on NBR.

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He describes how he viewed the cancer. He said, it's

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like Robert Schimmel, the person whoever's in my head that

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part doesn't have cancer, and it's like I'm trapped in

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a body that's betraying me. And I don't feel sick

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in my head. You know, you don't feel like you're dying.

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You don't even look bad when you have cancer. It's

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the treatment that makes you look bad. And I feel

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like my body's the Titanic and it's going down and

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I'm the captain of the ship and it's gonna take

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