Alison Leiby is a writer and comedian who started her own showcase at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City called It’s A Long Story. Leiby’s story is still being told. In TV, it has included late-night writing on staff for Comedy Central’s The President Show, and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, as well as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She’s written jokes for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, published essays in McSweeney’s, Cosmo, Marie Claire and The New York Times. And her initial work punching up jokes for Broad City has led to a lengthy working relationship with Ilana Glazer. Leiby executive-produced Glazer's Comedy Time Capsule and her Amazon Prime Video stand-up special, The Planet is Burning. Glazer now is presenting Leiby in her first Off Broadway production of Alison Leiby: Oh God, A Show About Abortion, which begins previews April 25, 2022, at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Manhattan for a limited six-week run. Leiby sat with me to talk about how her comedy and writing career evolved from late-night TV to prestige comedy to her own very personal and politically active work.
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Irene Tu is a Los Angeles-based stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. After moving to Berkeley from Chicago, she quickly established herself in the Bay Area comedy scene. The San Francisco Chronicle singled her out as an “artist on the brink of fame,” while other outlets have named her to the lists of “Bay Area’s 11 Best Stand Up Comedians,” “Women to Watch” and “Comedians You Should and Will Know in 2019.” She has performed on Comedy Central, LOGO, Starz, and Viceland, and has opened on the road for comedians such as Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, and most recently, Taylor Tomlinson. Tu released her debut album in March 2022 via Blonde Medicine — We’re Done Now is a hilarious 15-track collection of stories about coming out and dating, observations about food, dictators, and diva cups, as well as morbid musings about surviving the apocalypse. Proving she can put up with anything, she sat down with me outside in the cold for a quick chat about her album and her career.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!
Gilbert Gottfried invited me into his home in 2017 so he could remind us what kind of comedian he was before 2001, why he decided to launch into “The Aristocrats” at the Friars Club Roast of Hugh Hefner for Comedy Central, and how it completely changed the arc of his career. But first, listen to the version of the joke he recorded for his 2005 special, "Dirty Jokes."
This episode originally aired in 2017 as part of "On Second Thought," a series I did for Laughly, an app that no longer exists.
Toronto has a rich history of producing great sketch comedy performers and troupes that have crossed over in the United States. Among the TV series: SCTV. Bizzare. The Kids in the Hall. Baroness Von Sketch Show. And now the foursome from the sketch group, TallBoyz II Men, who broke out quickly from the 2018 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, premiering their own TV show on the CBC in 2019. TallBoyz — created by and starring Guled Abdi, Vance Banzo, Tim Blair and Franco Nguyen, and brought to TV by showrunner, director and Kid In the Hall Bruce McCulloch — not only won multiple Canadian Screen Awards in 2022. They also hosted the ceremony; and already celebrating as their show got picked up in the U.S. The first season of TallBoyz premiered on Fuse in March 2022, with seasons two and three to air later in the year. Guled and Franco sat down with me to talk about their rapid rise in the business and what it’s like to make sketch comedy with one of the greats.
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Katie Hannigan taught preschoolers and performed as a mime before embarking on a full-time career as a stand-up comedian. So far, so good. Hannigan was a New Face at Just For Laughs Montreal, made her late-night TV debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert soon after. Hannigan has appeared on Comedy Central, MTV and The Travel Channel, developed a game show for the History Channel, and wrote a horror-comedy series for SnapChat. She currently co-hosts a podcast with comedian Sarah Tollemache, Lady Journey, and in March 2022, she released her debut comedy album, “Feeling of Emptiness.” Hannigan spoke with me about those past experiences, as well as studying in Russia, pretending she’s a garden statue, and how she’s the captain of her own ship steering her comedy career.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!