The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First

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 2026 with a worldwide YouTub...

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 longer and more varied, including not just Colbert and Fallon, but also The Pre...

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 her day job, and her former Netflix co-workers paid to see her headline a festival show. In May 2026, she was already booked el...

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 stand-up special, Nish, Don't Kill My Vibe, out now via 800 Pound Gorilla Media. Kumar spoke about how this special allowed him to experience America...

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. Along the way, she also has released three comedy albums — her newest, Hot Gnome , she self-financed as a video s...

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 first hour special, Dad On Arrival , in April 2026 through 800 Pound Gorilla Media. The co...

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 Comedy Works. Esquire debuted in February 2026 via Blonde Medicine, with Walker joking about growing up in C...

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 for Winters, as she appeared as a recurring character assisting the youth group in HBO's The Righteous Ge...

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 career with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City where he performed improv and sketch, played Trumpet...

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 The Late Late Show with James Corden . As a writer, her credits have included HBO's Crashing , TV Land's Teachers , Peocock's...

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 writing for The Daily Show , Koff also has written for The Onion , Trevor Noah's keynote at the White House Corr...

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 executive-produced by Peter Farrelly, one of the Farrelly Brothers who previously ha...

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   Hulu and Disney+. In between, he and his wife Emily V. Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay for The Big Sick (and won Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards). On...

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? Late-night TV certainly faced a political crisis on top of its existing existential crisis this past year, with CBS...

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 begun working behind the scenes as general manager of a cherished Los Angeles comedy venue, the Lyric H...

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: And Then The Rodeo Burned Down ; What if They Ate the Baby? ; and A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God, Whoe...

Jono Zalay began his standup 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 on OnlyFansTV. He also has worked behind the scenes as a story producer or consulting producer...

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 company formerly known as Sprint. Watson performs with the Upright Citizens Brigade on one of their house character teams, with f...

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 a comedian has toured the UK and India, and took her first one-woman-show, Hellarious , to the 20...

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 Wall has taken thus far to the Edinburgh Fringe, from their breakneck breakthrough perfo...

Chanel Ali   is a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress based in New York City. You may have seen her on MTV's Girl Code , TruTV's Laff Mobb's Laff Tracks , Starz's Night Train with Wyatt Cenac , or two showcases she did for Comedy Central in partnership with Refinery29. She also released a full special for Unprotected Sets , available on MGM+. Deadline named her as one of their 15 Comedians to W...

A San Fransisco native who's based in both New York City and Los Angeles, Dylan Adler is a musical comedian who performed and wrote for The Late Late Show with James Corden . Before that gig, Adler was named a Comic to Watch by the New York Comedy Festival and a Comedian You Should and Will Know by Vulture . He took his solo hour, Haus of Dy-lan , to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, and sat down with...

Britt Migs is a stand-up and sketch comedian based in New York City who was named a Creator to Watch at the 2024 New York Comedy Festival for characters such as her Italian publicist for the Pope. Migs manages Cracked magazine's social media and runs the Cracked Comedy Club showcases. In addition, she also has written for Reductress , co-hosts Sunday Sauce monthly at Union Hall with her Meat Cats...

Grace Helbig is a legendary YouTuber, etched officially into the VidCon Hall of Fame earlier in 2025. The comedian and actress who began documenting her daily life in 2007 through solo videos, two-hander sketches with her college bestie and Brooklyn roomie Michelle, and then DailyGrace on MyDamnChannel, eventually went on to write two New York Times best-selling books, and hosted her own talk show...

Ismael Loutfi is a comedian and TV writer currently working on the animated series Mating Season from the makers of Big Mouth. His previous credits include writing for After Midnight , Ramy Youssef's #1 Happy Family USA , and Netflix's Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj . As a stand-up, he has a half-hour on Comedy Central to his credit, along with appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Bill Burr's The R...