Ray Ellin has been the host with the most for most of his adult life. He started by MC’ing stand-up shows at comedy clubs in New York City. In the late 2000s, he launched a live interactive talk show, LateNet with Ray Ellin, first for his own website, DailyComedy.com, and later licensing it to air on AOL. Ellin also became the host for the official off-Broadway live edition of The Gong Show, receiving Chuck Barris’s blessing to do so. And before the pandemic, Ellin co-created, hosted and executive-produced a topical stand-up showcase for Comedy Central, This Week at the Comedy Cellar. Perhaps most uniquely, though, Ellin has spent the better part of a decade living almost half of the time in Aruba, where he has produced and hosted stand-up shows for locals and tourists alike on the Caribbean island as Aruba Ray. I’ve experienced Aruba Ray’s for myself, and got Ellin to tell me all about how he wound up a fixture on a tropical island and more.
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From the outside looking in, Eleanor Conway had a pretty good gig going for herself as a music journalist for Virgin Mobile, interviewing the biggest pop stars and singers on the planet. But she was miserable on the inside, and Conway had to change her life inside out. She has since sobered up and lived to joke about it, taking her debut show about sex, addiction and dating, “Walk of Shame,” to more than 10 countries. Conway followed that up with her show, “You May Recognize Me From Tinder.” But her 2021 show, “Vaxxed & Waxxed,” is the first that Conway has brought to the United States, performing in New York City for the 2022 Frigid Festival. Conway sat down with me between shows to talk about her life and career.
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Blair Socci played Division I college volleyball and went to grad school for creative writing before finding her voice through stand-up comedy. Her first break came in 2016 co-starring in the MTV sketch show, Ladylike. After becoming a New Face at Just For Laughs, Socci made her way back to California, where she became the co-host for The Trevor Moore Show on Comedy Central Digital, a frequent touring partner for Ron Funches, and made her late-night TV debut telling jokes on The Late Late Show with James Corden. In 2022, she has lots of voiceover work in the can already, including gigs on Netflix’s Q Force and Adult Swim’s upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. She also co-stars in the voice cast of Comedy Central’s new topical show Fairview, and Socci spoke to me about how she has found her way thus far.
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R.J. Fried turned down the National Hockey League first to pursue his college education, and then a career in comedy. So far, so good. Fried is an Emmy-nominated and WGA Award-winning comedy writer, producer, and performer whose credits have included Triumph's Election Special 2016, (Hulu), Maya & Marty (NBC), Onion Sportsdome (Comedy Central), The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC), Popzilla (MTV), and Rob & Big (MTV). He’s consulted for Sacha Baron Cohen, and he has written and performed onstage for Late Show with David Letterman. More recently, Fried has become a creator, show runner and executive producer for multiple animated series and movies with Stephen Colbert; among them, Our Cartoon President, Tooning Out the News, Washingtonia, and now, the topical toon satire, Fairview, for Comedy Central. He joined me over Zoom to talk about what he loves about his work and what he has learned along the way.
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Al Madrigal grew up in San Francisco and worked in his family’s HR business for 10 years before deciding to pursue a career in comedy. The next decade found Madrigal on the cusp of fame, starring or co-starring in a handful of network sitcoms and even more TV pilots that never made it to air. You likely first got to know Madrigal when he became the Senior Latino Correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Not long after that, Madrigal and Bill Burr launched All Things Comedy, a podcast network and more owned by comedians and built for comedians to succeed, expanding in recent years into making stand-up specials for Comedy Central and Netflix. Since the release of his acclaimed 2017 stand-up special, Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy, Madrigal has written and performed on Showtime’s I’m Dying Up Here, and landed on the big screen in Night School, The Way Back, and in 2022, the big Sony-Marvel Spider-Man Universe movie, Morbius. Speaking of comic books, Madrigal has just released his own comic-book series featuring Latino superheroes, called Primos. Madrigal sat down with me to talk about that and everything else.
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In the late 1990s, between the comedy booms, perhaps the hottest live stand-up show in Los Angeles happened every week on a Tuesday night. That’s when Guy Torry began hosting Phat Tuesdays at The Comedy Store, introducing black comedy for black audiences into the lily-white-dominated landscape of show business — or as Torry said, he “brought the hood to Hollywood.” This hip-hop comedy show was good for business at The Comedy Store and great timing for TV, what with two brand-new networks in The WB and UPN having a need for new stars. Torry got roles on both networks with The Jamie Foxx Show on The WB, and Good News on UPN. In a new three-part docuseries for Prime Video, director Reginald Hudlin assembled an all-star lineup including Dave Chappelle, Chris Tucker, Snoop Dogg and Tiffany Haddish to dish on the significance of Phat Tuesdays for both stand-up comedy and for Hollywood. And I got Hudlin and Torry to dish with me.
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Ali Vingiano is a writer, actress and filmmaking comedian who has leveled up over the course of the pandemic. She received her first Writer’s Guild Award nomination in 2022 for her work as a writer and executive story editor on Apple TV+s The Morning Show, and also stars in a largely improvised feature film, The End Of Us, which premiered in 2021 at South By SouthWest. After studying film at both Bates College in Maine as well as in Prague, Vingiano graduated from the Columbia Journalism School’s publishing course and soon found herself writing for BuzzFeed. Eventually, she pivoted to video, making short films and viral videos for both BuzzFeed and Glamour magazine. She also previously worked as a field producer for Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper. She sat down with me to talk about how the arc of her life and career came together, and how she managed to help act and make a pandemic-era rom-com about a couple who breaks up in March 2020, only to find themselves stuck with each other in quarantine.
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Beth Lapides is an actress, writer and comedic performer who has appeared on Will & Grace, Sex & The City, and Politically Incorrect. But she is best known for creating the alternative comedy show UnCabaret, which has been running off and on and mostly on since the late 1980s in Los Angeles. Lapides turned UnCab into a Comedy Central special in 1997, and then four more specials in 2012 for Amazon Prime Video. In between, she shot a talk show pilot for MTV. In 2022, Lapides has delivered her first exclusive audiobook about the power of life-changing decisions called “So You Need to Decide.” In the book, she talks about her own decision to create UnCabaret, and also interviews the likes of Margaret Cho, Isaac Mizrahi, Bob Odenkirk and Phoebe Bridgers.
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Nick Vatterott grew up in St. Louis but discovered his comedy voice in Chicago. You may have seen him perform on Conan, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, or his own half-hour special for Comedy Central. Or you may have heard him on his podcast series, Get Rich Nick, in which he and fellow comedian Nick Turner attempt every get-rich-quick scheme under the sun to teach us and themselves about capitalism in America. Vatterott does have a “day job” writing for HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher. But the former winner of the Andy Kaufman Award demonstrates his own out-of-the-box break-the-mold approach to comedy with his latest stand-up special, Disingenuous, released at the end of 2021.
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Justin Spitzer is a television writer and producer who worked as a writing assistant on Queer as Folk and Grounded for Life before breaking into the writers room on The Office, where he worked for seven seasons and received three Emmy nominations. Spitzer went on to create, executive produce and showrun his own beloved NBC sitcom, Superstore. In 2021, he signed a new four-year overall deal with Universal Television — his first big project under that deal is American Auto, which received a sneak preview on NBC and Peacock, and stars Ana Gasteyer as the new CEO of Payne Motors in Detroit, who just so happens to know nothing about cars. Spitzer spoke to me about his love for workplace comedies, his own career trajectory in Hollywood, and how having a wife who’s also in the biz — Jenna Bans, the creator of NBC’s Good Girls — helps them both keep on the right track.
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It’s time once again for Jason Zinoman, the comedy critic for The New York Times, to sit down with me as we deconstruct the year that was. This time we’re taking our best cracks at 2021. Was anyone bigger in comedy than Dave Chappelle? Was anyone better than Bo Burnham? We talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of everything in comedy worth talking about in 2021. Was there a Most Valuable Performer in Comedy this year? What does it even mean to be an MVP in comedy? Jason and I hash it all out, and through our differences, we find some common ground. It’s the only year-in-review comedy podcast you need to listen to, so listen up!
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Russell Howard is one of the UK’s most successful comedians, the writer and star of The Russell Howard Hour on Sky and Russell Howard’s Good News on the BBC network. After releasing his first Netflix special, Recalibrate, in 2017, Howard prepared to embark on a world tour in March 2020, with a documentary crew filming his preparations and family life. Instead, his new wife went back to work as a doctor on the COVID frontlines while he quarantined with his family — and from his childhood bedroom, began broadcasting a pandemic talk show for Sky called Russell Howard’s Home Time. When gigs began opening up again, Howard jumped at the chance to perform for live audiences, no matter where or how. You can see the results of his pandemic work in a new documentary, Until The Wheels Come Off, which accompanies his 2021 Netflix stand-up special, Lubricant. Howard spoke with me about his approach to comedy and to life, and how it may have changed 20 years after he first got onstage as a teenager.
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Mary Elizabeth Kelly is an actress who studied musical theater at Northwestern before moving to New York City. She didn’t quite land on Broadway, although she did rack up TV credits performing on Law & Order: SVU, Alternatino with Arturo Castro on Comedy Central, and Netflix’s Master of None, where she went on a date with Aziz Ansari’s character. Kelly and her husband moved to Los Angeles thinking she’d further her acting career, but the COVID-19 pandemic had other ideas. Instead, she found herself on TikTok, where her impersonation skills and mouth-acting parodies introduced her to millions of new fans. Kelly spoke with me about adapting her career from musical theater to TikTok, auditioning for Saturday Night Live in the summer of 2021, developing her first solo live comedy show, and what comes next for her.
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I first met Alex Edelman when he was just a teenager, aspiring to become a stand-up comedian while already scoring a lucrative internship with the Boston Red Sox. He achieved much throughout his 20s. A New Face at Montreal’s Just For Laughs. Multiple performances on Conan. Co-founded the Off The Wall Comedy Club in Jerusalem. Wrote on The Great Indoors on CBS. Opened on tour for the likes of Beck. Wrote and produced the YouTube benefit Saturday Night Seder, raising millions for COVID relief. He’s written and starred in three hit stage shows in London and at the Edinburgh Fringe. His first, Millennial, won him the Best Newcomer Award. His third, Just For Us, launches its first proper U.S. run in New York City in December 2021 at the Cherry Lane Theatre. Directed by Adam Brace and presented by Mike Birbiglia, Just For Us recounts what happened when Edelman decided to attend a meeting of white nationalists in New York City so he could face anti-Semitism, well, in the face. Edelman talked with me about growing up and finding his comedic voice, with plenty of shout-outs to the comedians and others who’ve helped him along the way.
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Carole Montgomery racked up dozens of TV credits as a stand-up comedian during the 1980s comedy boom, with her first big break coming on Showtime’s Comedy All Stars hosted by Don Rickles. After giving birth to her only child, she began a 10-year stint in Las Vegas, initially hired by Steve Schirripa at The Riviera, then eventually over at The Luxor. After returning to New York City in 2006, she performed on Nick at Nite’s The Search for the Funniest Mom in America, Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, and on the TV Guide Network's Standup in Stilettos. But at 48, she couldn’t find regular work in the clubs. So she started her own showcase, Funny Women of a Certain Age. It quickly became a fixture back on Showtime, with stand-up showcases airing on the premium cable network in 2019, 2020 and again in 2021. Fran Drescher, who appeared on that first showcase, is now president of the SAG-AFTRA actors union. Her third showcase features actress Teri Hatcher, plus performances by Wendy Liebman, Monique Marvez, Leighann Lord, Marsha Warfield and Montgomery herself — she joined me to share her firsthand perspective as a funny woman of a certain age.
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Lukas Arnold is an actor and voiceover artist who graduated from Northwestern University in 2017 and decided to pursue stand-up comedy after taking a class at Carolines on Broadway. He was just starting to get gigs around New York City when the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. On March 18, 2020, Arnold posted his first TikTok video. A year and a half later, he had amassed 2.2 million TikTok followers. The young comedian sat down with me over Zoom to talk about using his voice to his advantage both before and during the pandemic, whether there are any secrets to TikTok success and more.
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Jenny Zigrino first hit my radar in 2014 via the Marlon Wayans comedy contest on TBS, Funniest Wins. Zigrino didn’t win the contest, but much like her colleagues who didn’t “win” Last Comic Standing, she may just be winning the long game. Wayans cast her in his parody movie, 50 Shades of Black. She also won a supporting role in the big-screen sequel, Bad Santa 2. She performed stand-up multiple times on Conan, and followed that up with appearances on @Midnight, Adam Ruins Everything, and Adam Devine’s House Party. She also has starred in and created her own Comedy Central webseries, “Bad Ass Bitches of History,” and has both a Comedy Central half-hour and a stand-up album already to her credit. In 2021, she co-starred in the horror comedy movie, Too Late, and Zigrino sat down with me just before she’s ready to film her solo hour special as part of the 2021 New York Comedy Festival.
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As befits her name, Joyelle Nicole Johnson is a comedian and writer who brings joy to the stage. She made her network TV debut in 2018 on Late Night with Seth Meyers, but it was her May 2021 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that made such an impression that Fallon decided to executive produce Johnson’s debut stand-up special for Peacock. Her previous credits have included writing on Broad City, warming up the audiences for Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and she’ll be seen on the upcoming season of HBO Max’s Search Party. Johnson released her first comedy album, Yell Joy, on Juneteenth of 2021, and recorded her Peacock special, Love Joy, on her 40th birthday. The comedian talks to be about all of that and more.
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Ricky Velez grew up in a blue-collar family in Queens and started living a blue-collar career before he discovered comedy, roomed with Pete Davidson, and won the New York’s Funniest stand-up competition. In that order. After winning that contest in 2014, Velez rose quickly through the ranks, earning a gig as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore and appearing on Variety’s 10 Comics to Watch list. He has since appeared on Netflix’s Master of None, Comedy Central’s This Week at the Comedy Cellar, and he reunited with Davidson to co-star and co-produce the 2020 film, The King of Staten Island. Davidson and Judd Apatow now have teamed up to produce Velez’s first stand-up comedy special, Here’s Everything, for HBO. 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!
Ahir Shah is a British comedian who was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and 2018. He has turned his 2019 touring show, DOTS, into his first proper televised comedy special, which debuted on HBO Max in 2021. Shah sat down with me over Zoom not once but twice, as we had far-ranging discussions about comedy, religion, the politics of satire on British television courtesy of Nish Kumar’s Late Night Mash, and how Shah feels about having an amplified voice in this time of great uncertainty. 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!
After spending his 20s as a computer programmer, Will Hines caught the improv bug when he began studying and performing at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 1999 in New York City. He has gone on to become one of the most respected and experienced improv instructors with the UCB in New York and Los Angeles, as well as working with corporate clients, and he turned his Tumblr, Improv Nonsense, into a book: How to Be The Greatest Improviser on Earth. His screen credits included a recurring role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine as D.A. Carl Kurm, plus appearances on Kenan, Broad City, Search Party, Inside Amy Schumer, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Adam Ruins Everything, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Community, as well as sketches with Conan, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Funny or Die, CollegeHumor and AboveAverage. Will caught up with me during his return to NYC for the North Coast Comedy Festival, where he both performed stand-up and taught an improv workshop.
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You’ve been hearing the wit and wisdom of Harry Shearer for the past four decades. Since 1983, Shearer has hosted and produced a weekly hourlong radio program, Le Show, that mixes news reports, interviews and music that can be equal parts referential and comedic. (It’s heard around the world on the radio or via podcasts.) You’ve also enjoyed Shearer’s contributions to the monumental rockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap, as Derek Smalls, and of course, absorbed so many funny lines from his vocal work on The Simpsons, where he won an Emmy for his work as Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner and Kent Brockman. He’s also been Grammy-nominated for multiple albums, and wrote and directed multiple documentaries about New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Shearer joined me over Skype from his home in New Orleans to talk about all of that, his younger days in The Credibility Gap with Michael McKean and David Lander, and his youngest days as a child actor working alongside legends Jack Benny and Mel Blanc.
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Sophie Santos grew up in locations around the country, moving from Kansas to Alabama and eventually New York City, where she hosts “The Lesbian Agenda,” a satirical comedy show that she plans to take on the road to further her agenda. In 2021, Santos voiced roles in two Audible Original podcast series, Hit Job starring Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer, and Hot White Heist starring Bowen Yang, Alan Cumming and Cynthia Nixon. Santos has just written her first book, a memoir called “The One You Want To Marry (And Other Identities I’ve Had),” and celebrates the book launch Oct. 1 at Brooklyn’s Union Hall in conversation with comedian and actor Aaron Jackson. Santos talked with me about coming out as a lesbian first, and later as a comedian, finding her way and her voice. She also shared stories about working on the dating show, Blind Date, as well as taking her two-person musical parody show, “Riverdale Live,” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
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Niccole Thurman is an actress, writer, and the co-host of the podcast, The Scroll Down with Marcella Arguello. Originally from Kansas, Thurman studied acting at the University of Kansas before finding her place in comedy through The Second City in Chicago. She served as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and you might also have seen her on such shows as Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show or NBC’s Superstore. You currently can hear as the voices of Jabberjaw, Squiddly Diddly and Dee Dee Sykes in the HBO Max series Jellystone, and spot her in picture frames and flashbacks on the NBC sitcom, Kenan. Her recent writing credits include the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards for Jimmy Kimmel, IFC and AMC’s Sherman’s Showcase, HBO Max’s Haute Dog, FOX’s Let’s Be Real for Robert Smigel, and the Peacock competition show, Baking It, for Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg. Thurman sat down with me to talk about how she found her point of view through her various gigs as well as her growing social media presence. 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!
Bill Engvall is a Grammy-nominated comedian from Texas who made up one-fourth of the mega-successful Blue Collar Comedy Tour alongside Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White, touring from 2000 to 2006 and making a sketch comedy show together. Since then, Engvall also has starred in multiple solo stand-up specials, his own TBS sitcom, The Bill Engvall Show, made it to the finals of season 17 of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, and had a recurring role on Tim Allen’s FOX sitcom, Last Man Standing, in the role of Reverend Paul. He put out his own podcast, “My Two Cents,” as well as weekly videos to his followers, “Sunday Morning with Bill.” In the summer of 2021, Engvall announced he’d be embarking on his final comedy tour, announcing his retirement from stand-up after more than 40 years. But you’ll still see him in the new reality TV series, Blue Collar Auction, and Engvall sat down with me to talk about his career and the lessons he has learned along the way. 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!