Asking comedians about the historic lasts and firsts in their lives as their comedy careers have blossomed.
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Dan Wilbur is a comedian and author of two humor books, “How Not To Read” and “Never Flirt with Puppy Killers.” He released his first stand-up comedy album, Husband Material, in 2023, has been featured on CollegeHumor, McSweeney’s and Someecards, where he also worked as the Ecards editor. Wilbur sat down with …
Chloe Radcliffe is a comedian and actress most recently seen on the big screen playing a comedian and magician opposite Will Arnett and Bradley Cooper in the film, Is This Thing On? Radcliffe is based in New York City but came up out of the Twin Cities comedy scene in …
Jenny Gorelick is a comedian, author, actress and former Jersey girl based in New York City. She performs monthly at Club Cumming at her signature show Love, Sex, & Magic and played an adoring fan of “THE Che Diaz” in And Just Like That. Her personal essays and humor pieces …
Kimmy Gatewood is a comedian, actress and director whose newest project is directing the 2026 movie Descendants: Wicked Wonderland, the fifth installment in Disney’s musical cinematic universe following the teenage children of classic Disney villains. She previously has directed episodes of Ghosts, Girls5Eva, Going Dutch, and Sesame Street, the latter …
Michael Cruz Kayne is a comedian, actor and writer based in NYC. He wrote for the last six seasons of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he’s an Emmy nominee again in 2026. At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, he co-wrote and starred in Terrible Babysitters, a 2013 webseries …
Jourdain Fisher is a Brooklyn-based comedian who has written for 50 Cent’s BET sketch comedy series, 50 Central, appeared on After Midnight, and performed stand-up on both Comedy Central and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. His debut self-produced hour Bits & Pieces premiered exclusively on 800 Pound Gorilla’s new streaming service, Gorilla Comedy+, in May …
Emmy Blotnick is a New York-based comedian who has written for and performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. You may also have heard her joking multiple times on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! or seen her performing stand-up on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Conan. Her writing credits are even …
When Netflix held its first-ever Netflix Is A Joke festival in Los Angeles 2022, stand-up comedian Leslie Liao was working for Netflix in human resources and had to buy tickets to see shows in the festival. For the second Netflix Is A Joke fest in 2024, Liao had just quit …
If you listen to Pod Save The UK or The Bugle, or you watch Taskmaster, then I don’t have to explain Nish Kumar to you. The British comedian — twice nominated for Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe — sat down with me over Zoom to talk about his new …
Kelly MacFarland is a stand-up comedian with TV credits on NBC, Comedy Central and AXS Gotham Comedy Live. MacFarland also has performed at Denis Leary’s Comics Come Home at Boston’s TD Garden, and more recently put out a half-hour with Dry Bar Comedy and a set with Don’t Tell Comedy. …
Named one of Variety’s Top 10 Comics to Watch in 2025, Joe Dombrowski first broke through in 2017 when he went viral for pranking his fourth-grade students and landed multiple appearances on Ellen. Now with more than 1.3 million Instagram followers, and another 1.6 million on TikTok, Dombrowski released his …
Troy Walker is a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! who also wrote for Kimmel’s turns hosting the Oscars, but he came up through the Denver comedy scene while also graduating from law school and working in money laundering compliance. Walker returned to Denver to record his debut comedy album at …
Maggie Winters is a South Side Chicago comedian who came up in improv with iO and as a stand-up through Lincoln Lodge’s FemCom program, and she first found a wider audience online with millions of views for her front-facing character videos on TikTok and Instagram. 2023 was a breakthrough year …
Mark Vigeant blends clown, improv, physical theater, and multimedia to create interactive comedy shows such as The Best Man Show, which he took to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and 2025, and released as a special on Dropout in February 2026. Vigeant is based in Los Angeles, but started his …
Jamie Lee is an Emmy-winning writer and producer on Apple TV’s Ted Lasso who began her comedy career in the press office of Comedy Central. Her first break in front of the camera came via panel shows, most notably MTV’s Girl Code, as well as performances on both Conan and …
Matt Koff is a Brooklyn-based stand-up comic and Emmy-winning TV writer who has spent more than 13 years writing for The Daily Show. His own stand-up was featured on Adam Devine’s House Party on Comedy Central, and earned him the title of New York’s Funniest in 2023. In addition to his …
Steve Sweeney is a comedian and actor from Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood who has performed on big stages and bigger screens for more than four decades. His newest project is Townie, a documentary-style stand-up film making its North American premiere at the New York Comedy Film Festival in February 2026. It’s …
A dozen years removed from his debut stand-up special, Beta Male on Comedy Central, Kumail Nanjiani’s fans can finally see him in a new hour, Night Thoughts, which premiered in December 2025 on Hulu and Disney+. In between, he and his wife Emily V. Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for their …
It’s the end of 2025, which means it’s time once more for my annual December to remember the year in comedy with my friend and colleague in comedy criticism, Jason Zinoman from The New York Times. Which funny people met the moment to become Comedy’s Most Valuable Performer for 2025? …
Mike Bridenstine appeared on this podcast three years ago in Episode 417. Since then, he has written and published his second book about comedy, “Kansas City Comedy: The Unbelievable True Story of Stanford & Sons, Its Outlaw Owners and the Most Infamous Stand-Up Sets of All Time.” Brido also has …
Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland met in high school in Maryland and have been making magical two-handed theater shows ever since. Now based in New York City, they have taken three shows to the Edinburgh Fringe since 2022, winning The Scotsman’s Fringe First Awards for writing for each of them: …
Jono Zalay began his stand-up career in Boston while simultaneously earning his Doctorate in Neuroscience, where his research work included giving cocaine to rats. Since dropping his science hobby to pursue comedy full-time, Jono has done standup for The Late Late Show on CBS, Netflix is a Joke, and LMAOF …
Jamie Linn Watson is an NYC-based actor and comedian. You may have seen her as Joanna Roscoe in season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows, a judgy church girl in Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, or as the Sprintern in many national commercials for the …
Saaniya Abbas grew up in New Delhi, attended an all-girls Catholic school in the Himalayas, and only discovered herself once she found herself divorced in Dubai and starting a new life as a stand-up comedian. She amassed a half-million followers on Instagram hosting live videos in the pandemic, and as …
Lou Wall is an Australian comedian whose two most recent shows were both nominated for Most Outstanding Show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Wall has appeared on Australian TV panel shows, and also appeared in the ABC Australia and Netflix series, Fisk. I’ve seen and reviewed all three shows …
