The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First

Originally from New Jersey, Anthony DeVito is a NYC-based comedian who has performed on The   Late Show with Stephen Colbert , released a half-hour special on Comedy Central, and a full special, "Brain Noise," in May 2022 on YouTube. DeVito was a writer and sidekick of Sam Morril on MSG's People Talking Sports and Other Stuff.  He followed that up by writing for Netflix's The Break with Michelle W...

Emily Wilson is a comedian and actress based in New York City who performs stand-up, characters and funny songs. Wilson hosts a weekly comedy showcase in the East Village called Tuesdays at the Red Room. But you may have seen her before and not realized it —   Wilson competed on The X Factor in 2011, when she was only 15 — and that experience is mined for her one-woman show "FIXED," which she is t...

Lance Reddick stars as Renzo, an egotistical human warrior who has liberated the planet Farzar from evil aliens — it's all part of the new Netflix sci-fi animated comedy series, Farzar , created by Roger Black and Waco O'Guin, whose previous animated projects include Brickleberry and Paradise PD. Black and O'Guin have been making outrageous comedy since meeting in college at the University of Geor...

Kylie Brakeman is an actress and comedian who broke through during the pandemic, as millions have found themselves laughing and sharing her videos where she faces the camera as one of many high-energy characters just trying to make sense of the world we live in now. From the strength of her videos on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, Brakeman has landed writing jobs on Peacock's The Kids Tonight Show...

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Jackie Fabulous grew up in The Bronx but went to law school in Southern California before deciding in her mid-30s to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. After some initial TV credits on Arsenio and Last Comic Standing , her comedy path began to become truly fabulous after she competed on America's Got Talent in 2019. She moved back to The Bronx just before the...

Jordy Fox Ellner is the head of film, TV and podcast development at All Things Comedy, the production company launched by comedians Bill Burr and Al Madrigal. Ellner started as a comedian himself in the late 1990s in Los Angeles, where Mitzi Shore made him a doorman and eventually a paid regular at The Comedy Store. His career transitioned in 2006 when he took over the fledgling comedy division at...

Dan Perlman started out as an intern on SiriusXM's "Ron and Fez Show" and continued working with and for Ron Bennington while he was hitting the stand-up open mic scene in New York City. After winning the Just for Laughs-New York TV Festival's "Set to Screen" Comedy Pitch Competition in 2015, Perlman earned himself a pilot presentation from FOX for his animated project, That's My Bus . But it was...

Iain Stirling's Scottish accent might be known around the world for narrating the exploits of the hit British reality TV series, Love Island . But in Stirling's first Amazon Original stand-up special, Failing Upwards , the comedian finds himself falling short of everyone else's expectations when it comes to his physical health and his love life. Stirling sat down with me over Zoom to discuss how g...

You may have heard Helen Hong as a regular panelist on the hit NPR quiz show, "Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me." Hong also has appeared on the big screen in Inside Llewyn Davis , and in recurring roles on TV in sitcoms and comedy shows including HBO's Silicon Valley , The Unicorn on CBS, and The Netflix Afterparty . And as a stand-up comedian, Hong has grown up from her start as a "Little Ethnic Girl," re...

Wyatt Cenac and Donwill have enjoyed a long friendship and working relationship, with the DJ providing beats and sidekick commentary for Cenac when he had a long-running Monday night stand-up showcase in Brooklyn called Night Train, which begat a Seeso series of the same name. They also worked together on HBO's Problem Areas with Wyatt Cenac . And since 2011, the duo has presided over a live movie...

Bruce McCulloch is a Canadian actor, writer, and director best known as one of the five  Kids in the Hall  — who came back in a big way in 2022 — their sixth season of sketch comedy premiered May 13 on Amazon Prime Video, with a documentary about them,  Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks,  out the following week. As a solo act, McCulloch has written a book ("Let's Start A Riot"), released two albums, ...

Addie Weyrich got an early jump on her comedy career, dropping out of NYU when the teenager's work with the likes of the Upright Citizens Brigade, Improv Everywhere and Buzzfeed were taking off. She scored roles on episodes of Crashing on HBO, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon, and Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell on Adult Swim, and she began appearing in national TV commercials. That jumpstart...

Karen Chee is a writer and performer for Late Night with Seth Meyers . She has previously written for the Golden Globes and the Amazon Prime Video special, Yearly Departed , has developed TV pilots for Netflix and Comedy Central, and has published humor pieces in The New Yorker and McSweeney's . All before the age of 27. No wonder she made Variety's "Power of Young Hollywood" list as well as Forbe...

Alison Leiby is a writer and comedian who started her own showcase at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City called It's A Long Story. Leiby's story is still being told. In TV, it has included late-night writing on staff for Comedy Central's The President Show , and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper , as well as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . She's written jokes for Triumph the Insult...

Irene Tu is a Los Angeles-based stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. After moving to Berkeley from Chicago, she quickly established herself in the Bay Area comedy scene. The San Francisco Chronicle singled her out as an "artist on the brink of fame," while other outlets have named her to the lists of "Bay Area's 11 Best Stand Up Comedians," "Women to Watch" and "Comedians You Should and Will Know...

Gilbert Gottfried invited me into his home in 2017 so he could remind us what kind of comedian he was before 2001, why he decided to launch into "The Aristocrats" at the Friars Club Roast of Hugh Hefner for Comedy Central, and how it completely changed the arc of his career. But first, listen to the version of the joke he recorded for his 2005 special, "Dirty Jokes." This episode originally aired...

Toronto has a rich history of producing great sketch comedy performers and troupes that have crossed over in the United States. Among the TV series: SCTV . Bizzare . The Kids in the Hall . Baroness Von Sketch Show . And now the foursome from the sketch group, TallBoyz II Men, who broke out quickly from the 2018 Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival, premiering their own TV show on the CBC in 2019. TallBo...

Katie Hannigan taught preschoolers and performed as a mime before embarking on a full-time career as a stand-up comedian. So far, so good. Hannigan was a New Face at Just For Laughs Montreal, made her late-night TV debut on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert soon after. Hannigan has appeared on Comedy Central, MTV and The Travel Channel, developed a game show for the History Channel, and wrote a h...

Matt McCarthy began his comedy career as the Fordham Ram mascot, but quickly carved out a spot for himself in New York City's stand-up scene, scoring TV credits with Comedy Central on both Live at Gotham and John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show . You may recognize him from his previous sketch comedy work on Conan, or from his many TV commercials, including a long-running stint as "the cable guy" o...

Ben Rosenfeld was born in the city formerly known as Leningrad, but came to Connecticut as a toddler with his parents as the Soviet Union began to break apart. His comedy reflects his upbringing as a Russian Jewish immigrant in America. A graduate of Rutgers University, Ben entered a Ph. D. program in neuroeconomics at CalTech before realizing that his career path was meant for comedy instead. His...

Colin Mochrie is one of the most successful and best-known improvisational comedians in the world, having performed on several hundred episodes of Whose Line Is It Anyway? since 1991, first broadcast in the UK, then later here in America on ABC, ABC Family and since 2013 on The CW. Born in Scotland and raised in Canada, Mochrie learned his theater and comedy skills at Vancouver TheatreSports and S...

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 , re...

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 mo...

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...

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), Popz...