The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First

Keith Malley and Chemda Khalili began podcasting out of their apartment in Queens in March of 2005, three months before Apple recognized podcasting officially on iTunes. "Keith and The Girl" quickly became one of the most popular podcasts, and by 2011, they'd launched a VIP service that garnered some 50,000 paid subscribers, who pay monthly or annually for access to 10 additional podcasts and bonu...

A classically trained theater major who grew up in New Orleans and Minnesota's Twin Cities, Lyric Lewis took her degree from Syracuse and headed straight for Hollywood, where she auditioned for The Groundlings. Over the course of several years, Lewis worked her way up the ranks, eventually reaching the cast of the Sunday Company. Then in quick succession, she landed a spot in the CBS Diversity Ske...

Steve Agee had a bizarre enough life behind the camera before he ever got his first big shot in front of it thanks to Sarah Silverman. Agee edited footage for MTV's reality shows such as The Real World, then got a job writing for Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he's responsible for launching the famous Kimmel bit, Unnecessary Censorship. Since co-starring on the Sarah Silverman Program, Agee is recogniza...

In 2019, Dane Cook is heading out for his first full national tour in six years, and he's calling it his  Tell It Like It Is tour ,  playing venues such as the Wang Theater in his hometown of Boston and Radio City Music Hall in New York City. How is it now for Dane Cook? Cook sat down with me in The Comedy Store's podcast studio this month to talk through his comedy and personal demons, as well as...

Henry Rollins was the legendary frontman for hardcore punk band Black Flag in the 1980s, then his own Rollins Band into the 90s and early oughts. Rollins also has written more than two dozen books, appeared in movies such as Heat, Lost Highway and Bad Boys II, on TV in Sons of Anarchy, as well as hosting series for National Geographic and the History Channel, and putting out several spoken word sp...

Sam Richardson is best known for playing Richard Splett, the only optimistic voice in Selina Meyer's administration on HBO's Veep. Richardson spent summers in his childhood across the globe in Ghana with his mother's side of the family. But he's also a Detroit native through and through, getting his comedy start as a teen taking classes at Second City Detroit, and later co-creating and co-starring...

Shaun Latham found the key to his successful comedy career not in Los Angeles or New York City, but in Indianapolis. That's where he developed the most in recent years, and found a home with the Pat McAfee Show podcast and a hit web series, 20 Dollar Chef, through Barstool Sports. Latham, who went on the road opening for Gabriel Iglesias and got his first TV credits on Fluffy's Comedy Central show...

Gaby Dunn is a journalist, comedian and actress, who with comedy partner Allison Raskin, wrote, performed and produced the successful YouTube comedy channel "Just Between Us," with more than 700,000 subscribers. Their young adult novel, "I Hate Everyone But You," was a New York Times best-seller. Dunn's podcast, Bad With Money, was named one of the top 10 podcasts of 2016 by The New York Times. Ga...

Fred Armisen was one of the longest-serving cast members of Saturday Night Live, spending 11 seasons as Fericito, Prince, Barack Obama and more. He has since gone on to star in eight seasons of Portlandia on IFC, two seasons of Big Mouth on Netflix, another two seasons of Documentary Now! on IFC, one season and counting of Forever on Amazon Prime Video, and put out his first solo comedy special in...

Gina Brillon was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, and already knew she wanted to be a stand-up comedian before she grew up, starting her career when she was still 17. Brillon became the first Latina winner of NBC's Stand Up For Diversity competition in 2012, and since then has held sitcom development deals not only with NBC, but also with CBS and ABC. Brillon tours regularly with Gabriel Ig...

Before we turn our calendars to 2019 and start making jokes about writing 2018 on all of our checks that we no longer write because we live in a digital age, it's time once again for our annual tribute to the year's most valuable players in comedy. This is the fourth time that New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has joined me for this annual debate, and Zinoman got me thinking about whether...

Brian   Regan  is most comedians' favorite comedian. Even if you might not recognize him or place his name,  Regan  has stood out among stand-ups for the past two decades, with multiple comedy specials to his credit – including Comedy Central's first and still only live special, recorded at Radio City Music Hall.  Regan  performed 28 times on David Letterman, and since added a few Fallons. As part...

Adam McKay won the Academy Award for best screenplay for his adaptation of The Big Short. His newest film at the end of 2018 is VICE, McKay's darkly satiric yet mostly true retelling of the life and career of Dick Cheney. He has come a long way since his Second City days as an improviser and founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. McKay is a former head writer for Saturday Night Live, whe...

Sarah Cooper could have enjoyed a lucrative career in tech, only she didn't enjoy Google as much as she did making jokes about it. She began performing stand-up in 2010, and in 2013, saw a blog post she wrote about how to look smart in meetings go viral and land her a three-book deal. She has moved from New York City to Silicon Valley and back again, and her third book, How To Be Successful Withou...

Rosebud Baker has two famous names if you know where to look. Her family business isn't exactly Citizen Kane, although if you were paying any attention to politics, then you know a life of stand-up comedy and podcasting about Justin Bieber is a far cry from her grandfather's past as Secretary of State for President George H.W. Bush. Rosebud started out as an actress — she co-starred in the 2010 Su...

Comedy fans have known and loved Jason Mantzoukas for years. Even if you don't know the name, you've probably known and loved Mantzoukas and recognized him from his scene-stealing roles FX's The League, or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Drunk History, Transparent, I'm Sorry, No Activity, The Good Place, Big Mouth, or in movies such as The Dictator or The House. And you've certainly heard him as one-third of...

Anthony Cumia was installing heaters and air conditioners at 33 when a song parody he wrote about OJ Simpson caught the attention of a Long Island radio DJ named Gregg Hughes. Hughes invited Cumia to sit in with him, and from there, The Opie and Anthony Show was born. That was 1994. Twenty years later, SiriusXM fired Cumia after one ill-advised stunt and Tweetstorm too many, and ended the jock duo...

Orlando Leyba was born in Puerto Rico but deported to the Dominican Republic with his mother when he was just a small child. Leyba and his mom eventually made it back to the United States, and he got his start in comedy in Miami. Through hard work and timing, he's risen up the ranks, and in the past year, recorded stand-up for LaffMobb's Lafftracks on truTV, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,...

Carolyn Taylor, Jennifer Whalen and Aurora Browne met while performing with Second City Toronto. Later, Meredith MacNeill befriended Carolyn on the set of This Hour Has 22 Minutes . These four Canadian women joined forces to create, write, executive produce and Star in their own hilarious sketch comedy series, Baroness Von Sketch Show . They're in production on season four for the CBC, while seaso...

When real life becomes even more ridiculous than satire, then what role is there for comedians to play? And how should comedians talk about serious issues while still keeping their senses of humor? Those are two of the questions I posed to comedians on the front lines of the discussion, and on the red carpet of the Golden Probes, a satirical award ceremony mocking misogyny. Among the comedians I c...

You may or may not remember seeing J. Keith van Straaten in roles on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Gilmore Girls," "Beverly Hills, 90210," and ads for McDonald's, Nike, Pizza Hut, Cheez-It, and many more. But if you did, then you're just the sort of trivia expert who would have loved watching van Straaten host Comedy Central's TV game show "Beat The Geeks." He currently contributes to an NPR game show,...

Ted Alexandro has made multiple appearances on  David Letterman , Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel,  Craig Ferguson  and The View , had two half-hour specials on Comedy Central, and spent the past couple of years touring theaters and arenas around the world with Jim Gaffigan. He also is one of the co-founders of the New York Comedians Coalition, which successfully organized hundreds of comedians to neg...

Darrell   Hammond  started carving out a career for himself with voiceover work in central Florida after graduating from the University of Florida. More than a decade later, a chance Clinton impersonation during a performance at Carolines scored him his fateful third-times-the-charm audition for SNL in 1995. And more than two decades after that, he's still hanging around 30 Rock, now providing the...

Most people still think of Mary Lynn Rajskub as the counterterrorism techie Chloe from FOX's hit series 24 . But Rajskub has a long and storied comedy resume, from Mr. Show and Larry Sanders in the 1990s, to a prime time sketch TV effort with Kelsey Grammer in the 2000s, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Californication , to the movie Night School which opens this fall with Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and many...

Maria Bamford is one of the most exciting stand-up comedians working today. You may have seen her starring in her own Netflix series, Lady Dynamite , based on her own life, or Target's holiday season TV commercials, based on your own. Bamford has been on the front lines of revolutionizing stand-up comedy, from The Comedians of Comedy Tour with Patton Oswalt, to performing for her parents in The Sp...