The Genius of Gary Gulman

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Callaroga Shark Media. Hello Johnny Mack
with your daily comedy news. Hope you

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had a good Christmas. Did you
see Aaron Rodgers name check Dave Chappelle.

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Recently, former NFL running back at
Rashard Mendenhall has suggested an all black versus

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all white bull. Aaron Rodgers was
asked about it when he was on the

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Pat McAfee show last week, and
Aaron said, I think, off the

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top of my head spitballing. We
need to have a draft, and it

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has to involve Dave Chappelle. We
should have a draft because there's a couple

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of people we're not sure which team
they'd be on, so we need to

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have a draft. Mendon Hall had
started a little mini Twitter controversy when he

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tweeted, I'm sick of average white
guys commenting on football. Y'all not even

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good at football. Can we please
replace the Pro Bowl with an all black

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versus all white bull so these cats
can stop trying to teach me who's good

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at football. I'm better than your
goat. Joe Coy is going to host

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the Golden Globe Awards. Those are
on January seventh. Joe's selling out Arenas,

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but that'll make him pop in the
mainstream a little bit more like Nateprigatsey

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has this year, So the regular
folks will get to know Joe. That

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is cool. He gave a statement
which is I've stepped on to a lot

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of stages around the world in my
career, but this one is going to

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be extra special. I'm so excited
to be hosting the Golden Globes this year.

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This is the moment where I get
to make my Filipino family proud.

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Esquire did a wonderful profile with Gary
Goleman under the headline Gary Goleman can make

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absolutely anything funny. They tell the
story. It's November twenty nineteen. Goleman

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is scrolling through his phone on Twitter, and a tweet from Jason Zenman from

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The New York Times caught his attention. Zenniman had asked, what stand up

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have you liked that is about class? However you want to define it.

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That intrigued Gary Golmany realized he couldn't
think of a comedian who'd built a whole

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act around socio economic status. George
Carlin had touched on the topic, certainly

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with riffs about how the ruling class
operates to keep themselves on top. Gary

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says, but I hadn't seen anybody
who made the entire hour about class,

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and I thought, Oh, that's
it. That's a great area. And

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then I just started the article discussed
about how Gary is well respected in them

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many industry. I've met Gary a
few times. Great guy. I tried

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to hire him at the place I
used to work, but the boss didn't

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get it. The boss wasn't really
that good at looking forty yards downfield.

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I kind of am good at that. Oh well, sorry, Gary,

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I would have liked to have worked
with you. We tried. You were

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there, you know. Jud Appatsol
said, I think every comedian would agree

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that Gary is better than most everybody. There's certain people you go, oh,

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they're on another level. Their artistry, their ambition, their willingness to

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try new things, how much they'll
open up. No matter how many comedians

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there are, only a few were
working at the highest level, and Gary

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is one of them. Ryan Hamilton, who I love, shared an apartment

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with Gary and a couple other roommates
in New York City in the early twenty

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tens. Ryan said, we'd's just
so special to Gary, and he really

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has a gift for finding just the
right word that can turn a joke.

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Hamilton says having Gary for a roommate
was inspiring because Golman was always writing and

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working on his craft. The apartment
effectively didn't have a living or dining room

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because the living room had been turned
over to one of the roommates for a

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bedroom, but Hamilton and Goldman would
stand in the kitchen in the morning and

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talk comedy while eating seals. Ryan
says he was constantly threatening to start a

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newsletter that was just for our apartment, you know, with all the big

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news of the day about who left
what in the fridge. Seeing our apartment

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filtered through his comedical lens was really
fun. Esquire writes, Goldman has a

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rare talent for making an esoteric topic
funny in a broadly accessible way. But

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sometimes that means sitting on an idea
for years until he figures out how to

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make it work on stage. One
of his best known bits centers on a

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made up Netflix documentary about the US
Postal Services effort to give every state its

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own to capital letter abbreviation. When
Goldman's fictional team of abbreviators get stuck,

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they're forced to bring in a contractor, a specialist that created contractions. Goldman

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said he scribbled the original idea in
a notebook in nineteen ninety four, but

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it took him until around twenty thirteen
before he figured out how to successfully incorporate

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it into his act. Wow Variety
caught up with Robert Smigel. They gave

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Robert quite the wax job on Adam
Sandler's LEO, but I was more interested

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in the part about Triumph and would
Triumph have a run for office? Smigel

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said, I thought about doing it, believe it or not, not run

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for president, but some office and
just doing the entire campaign is trying.

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But part of it is campaign finance
laws are really strange and strict, because

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I would want to chronicle it,
and there are certain rules about how cameras

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can't be following you unless there's a
separate documentary crew, and I don't only

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want to do it if I could
do it in a humorous way. I

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love covering the election as trying for
Hulu in twenty sixteen, and it was

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one of the most well received things
I ever did in my career. They

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asked, Smile, was there any
sketch that you loved that he couldn't get

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on the air at SNL. Smichael
said, actually, there was one that

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Dina Carvey and I released. Bob
Odenkirk had written about it in his autobiography

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and talked about it on a show
as the funniest sketch that never aired.

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There's a host talking about early footage
of Charlie Chaplin. Dina Carvey plays Chaplain

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and we see outtakes where he's basically
unrecognizable and not funny at all. Then

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this waiter character comes out and he's
dressed like Chaplain. Take after take,

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you see Chaplain slowly steal every part
of his persona to the point where the

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guy ends up serving him in long
underwear. We did it at dress rehearsal

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and it never made it to air, but we put it online. Depress

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Enterprise caught up with Howie Mandell.
He told a story about being in the

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casino and said there was a lady
playing a slot machine, very focused on

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machines, so I thought it'd be
funny to sneak up behind her just before

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she pressed the button, I said
in her ear Deal or no Deal.

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She never turned her head. She
just elbowed me in the chest, knocked

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the wind In and said, get
away from me. She didn't know who

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I was. Now I like to
approach them from the front. Howie says

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he has a slot machine version of
Deal or No Deal in his LA office,

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but he says he's not much of
a gambler. He added, if

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he were on Dealer No Deal,
he'd take the first offer and go home.

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All right. I got a couple
more of those end of the year

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lists for you. This from Decider, the ten best stand up comedy specials

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of twenty twenty three. I'll have
mine for you later this week. I

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wanted to watch Ricky Gervais and you
know today's December twenty sixth. No,

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I didn't tape this on Christmas Day. I actually recorded this on Friday,

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So at this time I haven't seen
Jervais nor Goldman yet, but looking forward

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to it and hopefully in the real
world I've watched it both buy now,

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but we'll get to that later in
the week. You know, these lists

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are hard, Decider wrote, when
the calendar year finally ends, we'll have

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seen several hundred new stand up comedy
specials in twenty twenty three, at least

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seven hundred counting hours and a half
hours. They have a list of fifty

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seven that they reviewed. That's what
I'm saying. Like, I know,

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sometimes I sound crazy here when I'm
like, I haven't watched that one.

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I haven't watched that one. Like
I love doing the podcast, but you

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know, sometimes I don't want to
watch comedy. All right. This is

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Sean McCarthy who made this list.
He knows what he's talking about. Let's

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see who he liked here. He
is number ten, Greg Warrens, the

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Salesman. I started to watch that
one and I felt like they had added

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artificial laughter to it. You know, I do this for a living,

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and it just didn't sound right to
me. And that made me go,

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I'm out. McCarthy writes, close
your eyes. You might just imagine hearing

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what almost sounds like Mitch Heiberg if
only he could do corporate gigs. And

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I don't know if I can roll
with that one. Number nine Ralph Barbosa's

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Cowabunga. I have that on my
list pretty low, but okay, eight

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my name is Monique on Netflix.
That one didn't grab me. Seven Jim

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Gaffigan's Dark Pall. I'll have a
lot of great things to say about Jim

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later in the week. This particular
special did not make my end of the

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year list. Joe paris slow and
steady. I will comment on that when

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I do my list. Number five
Gary Golmans Born on third Base, tied

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with Maria Bamford's Local Act. Why
is there a tie for Barbiglia the Old

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Man on the Pool. As I've
said, I think you'll like it,

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and I'm a comedy snob. Three
want of psychs. I'm an entertainer.

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I didn't feel that special at all. Two Beth Stealing. If you didn't

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like me, then I didn't feel
that special at all. But I see

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that at a lot of people's list
up top. Wow, he has Mark

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Maren's from Bleak to Dark at number
one. I've been on a Maren kick

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and I don't even have this on
my list. Not my favorite Maren special

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at all. Wow. All right, we'll agree to disagree. Cratt wrote

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the ten comedy voices that mattered most
in twenty twenty three. Ten Sabrina Bryer,

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Johnny mack Goes, who may write
your annoying roommate is slaying on TikTok,

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proclaimed The New York Times. That's
Briar, whose TikTok following has nearly

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doubled since our national newspaper of record
wrote about her in the spring. Briar's

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secret is her willingness to be hateable
and yet relatable. Nine Hasan Minhaj,

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Right, we know about his little
kurf luffel with the New Yorker writing the

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xpos A news stories not being all
that true. Eight Diane Morgan from Kunk

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on Earth. Good call to jwatch
Kunk on Earth. You had that was

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probably my favorite thing of the entire
year. Seven Pedro Pascal what In addition

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to killing it on HBOS The Last
of Us, Pascal also became the unexpected

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MVP of Saturday Night Live. I
don't know about that, guys, really

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really all right? Move on?
Six Fran Dresher, Okay, yep,

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she was involved with the strikes.
Fine. Five John Mullaney crack right.

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So if you're getting tired of Mullany, it's only because the story has been

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everywhere in the past year. Baby
Jay Drew deserved comparisons to Richard Pryor's Live

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on the Sunset Strip for its ability
to generate huge laughs whiles telling harrowing stories

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of drug addiction. You know,
I never thought about that at all.

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I guess that's not a ridiculous comparison. Four George Santo's crack You're trying two

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hard three Matt rife Well discussed on
this podcast. Two Greta Geri cracked rights.

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Let's shower Gerwig with her well deserved
flowers. Barbie obliterated Box office records,

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et cetera, et cetera. And
they have number one. Elon Musk.

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No one wanted to be funny in
twenty twenty three more than Musk.

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In fact, it's what he's always
wanted. Paste Magazine the ten Best Comedians

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of twenty twenty three. They were
deciding who were the best comedians of twenty

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three is admittedly a really difficult task
by what metric? What counts as a

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comedian always a good question. Let's
see who they have. Nate bergatsy Well

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discussed Io at Aberri. She had
a really good season on The Bear Great

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show, Okay. Joe Firestone interesting
pick. With the release of her debut

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novel, Murder on Sex Island.
The year brought an exciting new venture for

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Joe Firestone and a clever marketing tactic. Firestone released each chapter to audiences for

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free via audio streamers, building intrigue
and momentum with listeners in order to boost

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book sales. H Robbie Hoffman,
Paste writes what makes this comedian so special

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as her candor mixed with her sincere
curiosity and compassion. You'll find her on

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Netflix's verified stand up pace, continuing
to throw deep. Next up, Micky

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Leaper, They're right. Whether you
thought Jury Duty was a stroke of genius

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or an unethical project in the relentless
pursuit of laughs, you have to admit

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it was a phenomenon. Leaper wrote
for Jury Duty and stars as Naive Drew

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or Noah, Okay cool good pick
May Martin, I just don't get it.

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A partner in on Churla. Good
to see her back. I've been

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a fan of hers for several years. Paste writes for The Nervous among Us,

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A partner in Trilla sings your tune
quietly in the back. Actually,

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she wouldn't be caught singing out loud
at all. Instead, you can find

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the anxiety written expert in deadpan delivery
on back shelves everywhere. With the publication

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of her debut memoir, Unreliable Narrator
Me Myself an imposter syndrome. Sarah Sherman.

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I love Sarah and I'm glad everybody's
getting to know her through Saturday Night

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Live. She crushes every time she's
on. Just she's fantastic. You know,

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they could build a pretty good cast. They've got Sarah Bowen Yang who

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hopefully sticks around for a couple more
years. He crushes every time as well,

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Jostin Chay. Just leave them at
the desk for another ten years.

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Yeah, Sarah's fantastic and I see
I scroll down by two. They do

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have Bowen Yang on the list.
Okay, we're on the same page there.

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But before bow and Yang they have
Jess. Tom Pace is a big

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fan of Jess's show Less Lonely.
Less Lonely digs into love at the end

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of the world, change and a
lot of weird sex. That's your comedy

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news for today. Now tomorrow,
we're promoting the Top Eleven podcast. That's

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a new podcast where every week you'll
get the top eleven things on a single

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topic. The topic can be anything, could be album covers, movie moments,

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quirky hobbies. You'll find the Top
eleven wherever you get your podcasts.

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So, as part of promoting the
top eleven. Tomorrow I will give you

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my list of the top eleven most
powerful comedians of twenty twenty three. See

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you tomorrow.