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Kalaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with your
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daily comedy news. Today. It is the twenty five best
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stand up specials of the year, and let's just dive in.
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Why are you doing this now, John? The year is
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not over. Well. You see, I hired a publicist and
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she needs to get the lists out to everybody else
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who's doing their year end recap. So I can't wait
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until New Year's Eve to put this out, so I
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have to jump in now. So with that said, there
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are at least five notable specials not part of this
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list because as I recorded this on Tuesday, they were
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not available yet. They include Sarah Sherman Live and In
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the Flesh, which was on HBO last night tomorrow, Robbie
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Hoffman's wake Up is on Netflix coming up on the nineteenth,
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Kamil nan Gianni's Night Thoughts, which Vulture says is the
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best special of the year based on the trailer. I
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can't believe that, but okay. Tom Sigora has a Netflix
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special on Christmas Eve, and Ricky Gervais has Mortality on
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Netflix on December thirtieth. So there's a good chance all
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five of those or at least four of the five
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of those make my revised end of the year list,
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which I'll put out around New Year's Day. But for
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right now, these are the top twenty five stand up
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specials of the year. I'm gonna jump right in, not
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mess around, not tease you, just tell you what it is.
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The answer is the top stand up special love twenty
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five is Mark Maren's Panicked from HBO Max. This is
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Maren at his absolute best. He found a way to
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channel all the anxiety of the current movement into something
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both deeply personal and universally relatable. This was the year
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Mark Maron walked away from his podcast sadly, but he
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handed it in his best work. Mark Maren's Panicked easily
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the best stand up special of the year. Number two
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Kevin Hart's Acting My Age on Netflix. Sorry haters, this
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one's just funny. It's Kevin Hart doing material about getting
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a little bit older. Laugh or laugh. It's there. I'm
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a guy sitting on the couch. Kevin Hart made me laugh.
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That's the mission. Mission accomplished. Same note from my number
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three special of the year, Matt Rife Unwrapped, a Christmas
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crowd work special. I know you like to hate on
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Matt Rife. I'm sorry, he's funny. I posed it in
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the Facebook group Daily Comedy News Podcast Group that Matt
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Rife Special's funny and people are like, really, Johnny mag
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you might be, as they say in Queens, are you
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on crack? And no, I'm not on crack. I'm on
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the couch watching Matt Rife and laughing. And most of
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the people who took my word for it clicked on
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it and went, oh wow, that was really funny. Bit
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of a drop to the rest of the top tier here.
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So those three, I think stand alone a bit of
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a gap here down to number four. Jim Jeffries to
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Limb Policy on Netflix. Jim Jeffries being Jefferies. Edis goes
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for it, always funny, always delivers. Number five Justin Willman's
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Magic Lover on Netflix. Did you watch this one? It's
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a comedy show plus magic. Yeah, I know you're like, what,
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trust me? Watch it? Justin Wilman Magic Lover, blending magic
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in comedy. It works. Number six and one of these
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years this guy's going to top the list. This is
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someone in ascendency. Longtime listeners of this program know what
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a fan I am. We are still at the point
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where I can somewhat easily get him to come as
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a guest on this show. We'll see how long that laughs,
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or if he's the new Jim Gaffigan. I think he'll
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still come on. He's John Marcos Sareisi Thief of Joy
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on YouTube. Fantastic. People are noticing how good he is.
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I saw he as a million three followers on Facebook. Now,
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like I said, one of these years, he's going to
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be number one on the list. Number seven kind of
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under the radar came and went, but I watched it
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and it was really good, and it was someone who
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had something to say. Moe Amer's Wild World on Netflix
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even did a bit of a Carlin esque thing at
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the end there. Really like that one a lot. On
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number eight. One of my favorite working comedians these days,
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Dusty Slay's Wet Heats, also from Netflix, quote unquote Southern comedy, working, clean,
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shucking jokes, love Dusty Number nine Netflix again. Bert Kreischer
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is lucky, Bert being Bert. Take your shirt off, tell
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a couple fun stories, be chartismatic. My note on this
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was just funny. Sometimes you don't have to overthink the comedy,
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specially you come right down the middle. Burt Kreischer knows
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what his fans want, he delivers. That's a good one.
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Number ten Brett Goldstein for the second best night of
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your life. That's nominated for a Golden Globe. You might
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be like the guy from ted Lasso. He's good at
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stand up. Yeah, he's good at stand up. Number eleven
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Michelle Wolf's The Well Netflix Again. I have in my
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notes here not hilarious, but, as I'm always say, for
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this next bunch of specials, good company. Enjoyed just staring
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at it and having my brain tickled. I wasn't like
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ah for an hour, but I thought that was really good.
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That's my number eleven special Michelle Wolf At twelve Sarah
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Silverman's post Mortem, also on Netflix. Netflix had a hell
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of a year here, very thoughtful comedy, which is a
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weird thing to say. I really enjoyed spending an hour
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on the couch with Era, so to speak, very very enjoyable.
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All right. One night when I was diving around Netflix,
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I came across Matt McCusker's Humble Offering and I wrote,
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poor Man Sheen gillis. Yeah, maybe, but the special works.
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The audio could be better. This is a little bit homebrew,
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but the material lands. Number fourteen, our first Hulu special,
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Mateo Lane's Al Dente, same note as I'm a one
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trick pony, I wrote, maybe not hilarious, but Mateolane is
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a nice company for an hour and sometimes that's enough.
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And number fifteen the last of the top tier specials,
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Tim Dillon's I'm Your Mother. If you like this podcast,
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you'll like this special. If you don't like Tim Dillon's podcast,
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you won't. Simple as that, take a break here and
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I'll tell you about the middle tiers. We take a
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look at Johnny Max's top twenty five comedy specials of
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the year, not including the five that didn't come out yet.
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Earlier I said there was that top three of Marin
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Hart and Rife, and then a bit of a gap.
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Then I had the rest of my top tier. This
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is the middle tier. This is still the top twenty five,
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but these aren't quite on par with everything that came before.
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The commercial break. Number sixteen special of the year, Mike
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Kaplan's Reenie. You'll find that on YouTube. Clever writing, clever execution,
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definitely worth your time. Seventeen Hulu again, Chinado Unaka's LOL
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Live that's a part of the Kevin Hart Brand. Nice
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debut special, Very funny eighteen Drad Carmichaels Don't Be Gay
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on HBO and here's the thing. For twenty minutes, it's
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brilliant Carmichael at his best. Then it kind of gets tired.
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This is a talented storyteller with something to say, but
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it just doesn't land. And after like twenty minutes, I'm like, oh, okay,
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nineteen Roywood Juniors at your age on Hulu. I know
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a lot of people really like this one. It's a
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solid pro doing solid pro work. Twenty yachtsco at Kotska's father.
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I think maybe I was a little disappointed in it
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because I loved her previous special so much. I was like, oh,
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this is gonna be amazing, and it was solid, not amazing,
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but definitely put eyes on that. Twenty one Ian Edwards untitled. Now.
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I didn't even know this existed. You'll fund it on
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YouTube until Vulture put it in their top ten. It's
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a nice club set. It's nothing special, there's nothing wrong
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with it. There are a few individual chunks that are
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quite memorable, a few individual jokes that are even more memorable,
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But you know to compare this to some of the
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things higher up on the list. No way. It's a nice,
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solid club set, but it's the sort of thing that
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you'd expect to see at the Chuckle Hut on Thursday
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night at the Late Show, not if you went to
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the arena and if he and Edwards handed that in,
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if that makes sense. Arii Shafeer America's Sweetheart on Netflix.
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A lot of people really like that one. I just
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couldn't connect with it. Wasn't digging it. It was okay.
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And I'm starting to pull teeth a little bit here.
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This was not the strongest year for comedy specials. Twenty
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three Gabriel Iglesias Legend of Fluffy from Netflix back in January.
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Here's the problem. It's an hour forty one. I can't
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I have comedy add I can't watch one guy for
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an hour and forty one minutes. No way, Gabe is funny,
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but this needed editing. Hey Gabe, maybe this was two
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really good fifty minute specials. I don't know why they
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went an hour forty one. He too much. Number twenty
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four Mike Birbiglia is The Good Life on Netflix. My note,
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civilians will like it Bverbiglia does his storytelling thing well,
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it's well crafted, it's a good version of what it
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sets out to be. Just not my cup of tea,
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but I understand the civilians like it. Twenty four is
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Mike Burbigulia running out the top twenty five. Jessica cursons,
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I'm the man, hilarious, same note, civilians are gonna like this.
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It's fine. I'm a comedy snob. It's fine. Some others
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that were on par with that, but I had a
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hand in a top twenty five, not a top twenty
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eight for the Publicist. So you can rank these twenty six, seven,
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and eight however you want, but these are among the
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better specials of the year. Larry the Cable Guys It's
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a Gift on Amazon. Cable guy knows what you want
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and cable Guy gets here done. Kathleen Madigan The Family
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Threat on Amazon. Kathleen is a pro, always hilarious, always
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puts a smile on your face. And Leanne Morgan's Unspeakable
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Things on Netflix, totally fine comedy stobbing me went, yep,
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this is good, but it's just not my cup of tea.
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So you know I got it. Her audience loves her.
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I'm not her audience. That's all fine. So those are
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Johnny max twenty five best stand up specials of twenty
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twenty five so far, not including the ones that aren't
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rut yet. Tomorrow we'll take a look at six of
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the funniest things of the year there weren't stand up specials,
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and I'll fly down what didn't make the list, and
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i will comment on the Golden Globes and nominations and
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meet you back here tomorrow