The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First

Godfrey was born in Nebraska to Nigerian parents who had fled that country's civil war in the late 1960s. Godfrey grew up in Chicago, which is also where he started pursuing comedy – despite his pre-med psychology degree at the University of Illinois – and where he filmed his newest hour of stand-up comedy, Regular Black , for Showtime. You also may have seen Godfrey in memorable roles on the big...

Ms. Pat's early career sounds a little bit like the role Sally Field's in the 1988 movie about comedy, Punchline, except only Ms. Pat grew up in a bootleg house in Atlanta, became a mother of two by the time she was 15, sold drugs, was shot twice, and arrested multiple times all before she met her future husband at 19. Her husband brought her stability. Her comedy brought her joy and a newfound pu...

Bert Kreischer is my special guest today, in an episode recorded in front of a live audience at the 2016 Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. He literally is the "Life of the Party." That's the title of his 2014 memoir — it describes how Bert's life changed as a sixth-year senior at Florida State University when Rolling Stone magazine visited and profiled him. That magazine article became the bas...

Variety magazine named Cameron Esposito  one of the 10 Comics to Watch in 2016, and there already has been a lot to see of Esposito this year – from her appearances on the big screen in Garry Marshall's final film, "Mother's Day," to the small-screen on IFC's Maron, performing stand-up on The Late Late Show with James Corden, and her first stand-up special, Marriage Material, on SeeSo. She's got t...

Hari Kondabolu and I go back to the scene of his very first big break, showcasing for the 2007 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and HBO, how that all happened, and how he managed to take a year off afterward to earn his master's degree from the London School of Economics. Kondabolu since has enjoyed time writing and performing for late-night TV with Totally Biased , and just this summer launched...

Of all of the characters in Mike Birbiglia's wonderfully true and funny film, Don't Think Twice, Chris Gethard's runs closest to his own. Gethard began taking improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade when he was only 20, and quickly became a darling of the UCB community, eventually starting a beloved improv team that saw one of its members — his friend Bobby Moynihan — leave for Saturday Nig...

Christian Finnegan co-stars in a new weekly show on A&E with Sherrod Small called Black and White, where over the course of the first eight episodes, they'll deconstruct today's headlines through the prism of race relations. Finnegan and Small cracked wise about less serious matters for years as part of VH1's Best Week Ever. Christian talks to me about finding his way into stand-up comedy, how Jim...

The annual Del Close Marathon brings the founders of the Upright Citizens Brigade together along with thousands of performers from around the world, celebrating their late improv guru Del Close by improvising comedy shows around the clock for a three-day-and-night weekend. In its 18 th year, the UCB4 – Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh – opened the proceedings with a legitimate...

Here's what I know about Yannis Pappas. He's a native New Yorker. He's gotten shot. He's a sneakerhead. He's Greek. In fact, so Greek he has performed in character as Mr. Panos, which is not to be confused with when he performs as a Puerto Rican transsexual named Maurica (More-eeesa). Pappas moved to Miami to help launch the Fusion cable network as co-anchor of the TV station's live primetime news...

Robert Kelly plays the Heathens drummer Bam Bam on Denis Leary's FX series, Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll, which begins its second season this summer, and popularized the double-meal deal, Bang Bang, playing Louis CK's brother Bobby on the award-winning FX series, Louie. He hilariously chastised me for combining the two things, Bam Bam! Bang Bang!! More importantly, though, Bobby caught me up on how he got...

Welcome to our 100 th episode together of The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First. This isn't like the other episodes, and not just because it's our 100 th episode – I mean, is any sit-down with Doug Stanhope normal, exactly? Even though Stanhope and I haven't sat down together in more than five years, he called me out the second he saw me across the room at the end of his own podcast at the...

Gary Gulman is the tallest funniest Jew I know, and I've known him personally since 2004, when he competed on seasons two and three of NBC's Last Comic Standing. Gulman went to Boston College on a football scholarship but found his end zone in stand-up comedy a few months after graduation. He has recorded three comedy albums and three hour-specials for TV consumption – his latest, the brilliant "I...

Jay Oakerson's first TV credit was on BET. Big Jay started stand-up comedy in all-black rooms in Philadelphia, and now he's playing to everyone while often relying on his sharp wit to riff with the crowds in the moment. He hosts an all-crowd-work series "Big Jay Oakerson's What's Your F@#king Deal," on the NBC digital comedy platform SeeSo, and his previous credits include multiple stories on Come...

Matt Balaker is writing a book about Greg Giraldo; scratch that, he's writing THE book on Greg Giraldo, as there hasn't been a proper biography about the outrageously witty stand-up comedian since he died in 2010 at the age of only 44. Balaker, a comedian himself, has interviewed more than 25 people close to Giraldo – from his former managers, friends, comedians, and his widowed ex-wife – and succ...

Kevin Bartini is a stand-up comedian and writer who audiences see first when they attend tapings of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore on Comedy Central. Bartini also has warmed up TV audiences for The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and sometimes now The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He also hosts The Movie Preview Review podcast (part of the ShowBriz Studios network), and spearheaded the year...

At 83, Dick Gregory remains an active comedy legend, logging more than 200 stand-up gigs a year. Gregory  changed the game in 1961 when he performed at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Club in Chicago, and the notoriety of becoming the first black comedian to play to white crowds led him soon thereafter to become the first black performer to sit on the couch with Jack Paar when he was host of The Tonight Sho...