The Best Stand Up Specials of the Year

Summary

Podcast Summary: Good One – “The Best Stand Up Specials of the Year”

Host: Jesse David Fox
Guest: Katherine Van Arendonk
Date: December 18, 2025

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Overview

In this annual tradition on Good One, host Jesse David Fox (Vulture) and guest Katherine Van Arendonk (Vulture TV critic and comedy specialist) discuss Katherine’s much-anticipated list of the top ten stand-up specials of 2025, as published on Vulture. Their conversation digs deep into not just what makes these specials great, but the shifting landscape of comedy, the creative choices of top comedians, and the state of stand-up in a year where political and cultural anxieties loom large. With candid insights and a tone that treads between analytical and playful, Fox and Van Arendonk offer a rich, critical, and at times hilarious tour through the best comedic work of the year.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Challenge of Year-End Stand-Up Lists

• Timing: Many specials release toward the year’s end, making them hard to include (04:57).
• List Philosophy: Katherine increasingly approaches the list with an eye to variety and artistic growth rather than just repeating fan favorites (03:11).
• Industry Commentary: Both urge comedians and networks to space out releases ("Don’t drop your special in December unless you’re doing holiday content" – 04:57).
• Evolving Standards: Jesse and Katherine note that conversations should be less about whether a comic is "good" and more about what unique qualities a special brings to the form (03:40).

Honorable Mentions & Missed Specials

• Jesse’s Would-Be Picks: Kevin Hart (“Acting My Age,” Netflix), Roy Wood Jr. (Hulu), Ali Siddiq (two strong specials), Adam Pally, Sarah Sherman (missed for December release) (05:29–07:47).
• Writer’s Rooms: Discussion on famous comics using writers to retain freshness and perspective (06:23).

The Top 10 Stand-Up Specials of 2025

Discussed in order, with detailed commentary, high points, and analysis.

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The Top Ten List and Discussion Highlights

10. Jordan Jensen – Take Me With You (Netflix)

• Auto-fiction and Rawness: Jensen’s special is described as deeply personal—painfully so—exploring difficult family dynamics with a level of self-deprecation and intensity that was both captivating and at times uncomfortable.
  • Katherine: “Maybe no special this year that I watched and laughed at as much while also feeling quite bummed. And that is a response to art that I think is valuable and interesting and it will stick with you.” (08:56)
• Content Warning: Heavy themes involving her father: “It’s... six times more than you expect about wanting to have sex with her dad in a way that is not flippant. It’s... rooted in something really complicated.” (11:57)

9. Earthquake – Jokes: Telling Business (Netflix)

• Masterful Command: Earthquake’s veteran presence, signature catchphrase (“These aren't jokes”), and effortless rhythm behind the mic are praised.
  • Katherine: "He is so accomplished... He has a catchphrase, which... builds and builds and builds." (12:54)
  • Jesse: “He just has...the earthquake rhythm...it is a roaring laugh that just sort of builds.” (15:19)
• Political Comedy: Stands out for confidently addressing politics at a time when many comics avoid it due to fatigue/exhaustion (17:24).

8. Ian Edwards – Untitled (YouTube)

• Premise Subversion: Edwards takes common, even hacky premises (airports, relationships), but steers them in fresh, unpredictable directions.
  • Katherine: “Every single time he just sort of walks into the space of that topic, picks up the oddest object inside, and goes like, but what if I turned this infidelity joke into this much weirder thing?” (19:06, 20:47)
• Stylistic Control: His restrained, businesslike stage presence is compared to Mitch Hedberg—methodical yet inventive (22:51).

7. Bill Burr – Drop Dead Years (Hulu)

• Career Arc & Vulnerability: Burr’s “anger-to-reflection” arc continues, with growing honesty and self-examination.
  • Katherine: “Bill Burr actually operating at the height of his powers is to take that incredible anger and turn it back on himself and turn it at the audience... the ultimate unfairness of our own mortality.” (24:10)
  • Jesse: “He has shown a person grow over the course of 30 years. Really, really showing it and not judging along the way.” (26:23)
• Complicated Public Persona: Discusses challenges of celebrating Burr amid controversy (Riyadh Festival) and changing fan expectations.

6. Atsuko Okatsuka – Father (Hulu)

• Artistic Evolution: Builds on her visual, dynamic style to examine family, helplessness in marriage, and her unique perspectives on childhood and parenting (33:37).
  • Jesse: “It all relates...it is visual first... abstracted partly because of specifics of her life, but also how she approaches comedy.” (34:18)
• Elegant Craft: After a previously more conceptual special, this one is appreciated for its looseness and nuanced thematic development.

5. Marc Maron – Panicked (HBO)

• Dark Comedy and Modern Paranoia: Maron continues mining personal and cultural apocalypses, but with more specificity to his own life—and new, surprising softness.
  • Katherine: "He has really leaned into...themes that are softer and figuring out how to foreground them without undermining the other kinds of messages." (35:48)
  • Jesse: “His paranoia about the world is not just justified, it’s like he’s the only sane person in the world.” (40:28)
• Meta-Impact: Noted for shaping how future specials tie public narrative and press tours directly into their artistic impact.

4. Cameron Esposito – Four Pills (Dropout TV)

• Post-Covid Artistry: Arendonk positions this as a “long-tail” COVID special, finally wrestling with pandemic isolation and the precarity of performance (44:49).
• Formal Innovation: Uses sudden, haunting flashes of herself telling jokes in an empty room—deeply affecting, never letting viewers settle.
  • Katherine: “It is the experience of absence that really communicates that so gorgeously.” (47:25)
  • Jesse: “She is resisting the telling nature of comedy... She makes you feel it and not telling you, like, this is what you’re supposed to feel.” (48:55)
• Execution: Mess-ups and flaws are intentionally left in, deepening the special’s somatic impact.

3. Mike Birbiglia – The Good Life (Netflix)

• Subtle Structure: Birbiglia’s gift for lulling audiences with stories before revealing the deep, existential heart, this time focusing on “life” and how to live with death’s presence.
  • Katherine: “Halfway through, you realize the game that’s been played... When you can pull off a magic show like that, it just absolutely gets you.” (53:07)
  • Jesse: “Mike’s great skill... he takes the longest road possible and the most complicated road possible to end on an extremely almost mundane answer.” (55:39)
• Relevant Social Commentary: His material on the Vatican visit gains new relevance amid the Riyadh Comedy Festival free speech controversy (58:41).

2. Steph Tolev – Filth Queen (Netflix)

• Total Commitment to Bodily Comedy: Tolev’s debut special is a visceral, joyful celebration of our grossest, most physical selves.
  • Katherine: “She is a complete experience of a person on a stage... she is the grossest slimeball person... and so are you, and so am I, and so are all these bodies." (61:19)
  • Jesse: “It is so life affirming and inspiring in a weird way... There are so many ways she's funny—voice, body, writing, performance.” (63:26; 64:03)
• Unfiltered Laughter: Both agree this is the most laugh-out-loud special of the year and would recommend it the widest.

1. Kumail Nanjiani – Night Thoughts (Hulu)

• Triumphant Return: After years away, Kumail confronts fame, pandemic isolation, and digital alienation with extraordinary emotional intelligence, writing, and control.
  • Katherine: “How emotional and controlled and considered he is about the human experience of dissociation... If this were just a very smart person able to unpack that, it would be fascinating... but he actually makes you feel we’re all in this place together.” (68:10)
  • Jesse: “Watching this special... I am the person chained up. We all are chained, watching what is on these streaming services and being like, this is good, right? And then... a person from the past shows up doing what it was like in the past.” (71:12)
• Comparisons to Richard Pryor: The hosts see a parallel in Kumail’s ability to offer a real, almost religious revelation of the person behind the public persona—“allegory of the cave” in stand-up form (71:55).
• Exceptional Craft: The special is hailed as a return to “fully composed” comedy, surpassing the “frozen yogurt” of bite-sized modern specials with true “ice cream” artistry (72:36).
• Significance: Jesse admits lobbying Kumail to return to stand-up and is “just so happy it exists” (75:48).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Auto-fictional Comedy:

  • Jesse (Jordan Jensen): “You have to wonder, is doing this a worthy experience? Like, was the audience getting something out of this? Because clearly it’s clear what she is getting out of being able to do it.” (11:56)

• On Political Comedy’s “Exhaustion":

  • Katherine (re: Earthquake): “People don’t want Orange man bad anymore. And to see somebody like Earthquake just stand on a stage and say, no, I know exactly how I feel about this. I am not a barometer for someone else. I am me standing on a stage.” (17:24)

• On Birbiglia’s Craft:

  • Jesse: “He takes the longest road possible and the most complicated road possible to end on an extremely almost mundane answer. Because the answer is not that interesting. The answer is going through it. The answer is life.” (55:39)

• On Steph Tolev:

  • Katherine: “It is like watching a cannon of diarrhea. But somehow you’re just thrilled to be there.” (66:15)

• On Kumail Nanjiani & Stand-Up’s Evolution:

  • Jesse: “It feels like new colors exist... We’re all trained to find this satisfying, but it is not. It is slop, and then someone shows you real food.” (72:50)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction of list philosophy & year-in-comedy talk: 01:54–04:57
• Honorable mentions & “late December” complaint: 05:02–07:47
• Top Ten countdown:
  • #10: Jordan Jensen – 08:06–12:50
  • #9: Earthquake – 12:50–19:01
  • #8: Ian Edwards – 19:01–24:10
  • #7: Bill Burr – 24:10–30:32
  • #6: Atsuko Okatsuka – 30:33–35:43
  • #5: Marc Maron – 35:43–44:43
  • #4: Cameron Esposito – 44:43–52:38
  • #3: Mike Birbiglia – 52:38–61:02
  • #2: Steph Tolev – 61:02–66:24
  • #1: Kumail Nanjiani – 66:30–79:53

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Tone & Takeaways

Fox and Van Arendonk bring their analytical but deeply enthusiastic tone, blending insider knowledge with humor. The discussion is unafraid to touch on the difficult and the taboo, as in their frank discussion of Jordan Jensen or the concerns of “post-celebrity” authenticity. There's excitement for new artistic forms (Esposito, Okatsuka), praise for transcendent craftsmanship (Birbiglia, Kumail), and a sense of both nostalgia and hope for where stand-up can go next.

The episode is essential listening—or reading—for anyone interested in how stand-up is evolving, why certain specials stand out in a crowded landscape, and what it means for both the art form and its audience to keep searching, as Kumail puts it, for "real food" in a world full of slop.

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Note:

• All timestamps are in MM:SS format for quick reference.
• Advertisements, show intro/outro, and non-content sections omitted.

Transcript

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

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[Jesse David Fox]

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[Jesse David Fox]

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[Jesse David Fox]

Coverage options are selected by the customer.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. I hate airplane and airport comedy. Nothing to me says I am a comedian and my only life experience is to be flying around the country and doesn't other that happens to other people too. So I guess that's what I'm going to talk about. Drives me insane.

[Jesse David Fox]

This is good one I'm Jesse Dave Fox, senior writer, Vulture and author of Comedy Booked. My guest today is Catherine Van Erdonk, a critic at Vulture. Welcome to the first video version of Kathryn and my annual tradition in which we discuss the best stand up specials of the year. Specifically, we discussed the list Katherine makes for Vulture, which we link to below. Though my list wouldn't have been radically different, at minimum we'd have the same top five, give or take. If you agree or disagree with the specials we talk about, sound off in the comments with your favorite specials of the year. So here is Kathryn Van Arendonk. I'm here with Kathryn Van Arendonk. Thank you for joining me.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

It is always a delight to be here.

[Jesse David Fox]

Nice to see you. So this is your list of best specials that you do and you've been doing it for how many years?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Oh, well, I don't know. Off the top of my head, probably 5ish at this point. Five or six?

[Jesse David Fox]

Well, you did one before COVID probably.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I did one or two before COVID Yeah. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Do you have any general feelings of how you approached it? Who were you as you were writing this list, you feel?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I I started off finding it a really strong comedy year and then as the year went on it felt like suddenly there were a bunch of specials that were not getting a lot of attention and instead everyone was talking about the Riyadh Comedy Festival. And, and so it was, it feels like a year that has it's a little bit of a donut shaped and because I do think there are some really strong things that are out toward the end of the year. It is always frustrating when there are things that are released near the end of the year that I didn't get in time to put on a list.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

But that definitely happened this time. The other thing that I wanted to say about this list is that I. I have now been doing this for enough years that I am more able to take the kind of approach that I do with a TV list, which is like, somebody has been on a list before, maybe somebody else is on the list.

[Jesse David Fox]

Oh, interesting.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Instead, which is not to say, I mean, there are a lot of people on the list who. I think the specials are just incredible. And so they are on this list again, even though they have been on the list in the past. But it is also an opportunity to say, all right, like, I love this comedian. Anyone who has been following these lists knows that I love this comedian. It might be time to point out that other comedians also exist.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Also, I think it allows you to not just do a ranking of who are good comedians and try to figure out what makes a special feel like. It is uniquely a thing that holds up.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Where I think, I think so often conversations around specials just become about litigating if the comedian is good and there's enough good comedians that that does not have to be the criteria anymore. I will say, like, there many comedians listen to this special. I believe some executives listen to it. Really? We gotta release far fewer specials in December and November. Unless you are a family friendly comedian who wants a special round Thanksgiving in December. You gotta try so hard not to do it. Not just because of this list. It's just because there's so many and they can't break through. And there's like truly no specials that come out during the summer.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And like Ali Wong special, the one that broke through, came out during summer because it was like literally the only special that came out during summer. So everyone had to like engage with it.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

So if you're listening, I know you are thinking comedian. Next year I'm going to film a special. So starting in January, I'm going to work to do that. You then work to it. You film it somewhere in the summer, early fall to then come out that year. You create a timeline that centers December. Don't do that. Yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I mean, we have to file these lists like the first week of November.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah. It's a good reality. So it's like here are specials that are. So our top five are too similar for me to make my own list. It seems it would be arbitrary. But here are specials not on your list that might have been on mine. And the one that is most related to this is Kevin Hart's special, which came out on Netflix, I believe it's called Acting My Age. And you know, Kevin Howard has put out good specials over the last 15 years. And they're good.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, I've had them on the list.

[Jesse David Fox]

And you go like, oh, he's good, but, you know, he's busy, so you're not like expecting sort of anything. And you sort of just assume that's where he's at. Because usually when comedians get to the level where they plateau or they're sort of. Their attention is divided. They put out pretty good specials, and that's kind of what we hope from them. They're like, we're just sort of, you know, keeping their seat warm. And then this out of nowhere, he's super locked in. He has that spark that makes him such an exciting stage presence. And he figured out angles on the things that made him so good 15 years ago, which is, how can he be self deprecating and be underdog when he has hundreds of millions of dollars?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And he does that one by like using Michael Jordan as a sort of like, example of a different, like a person he's below. So then he can like talk shit about Michael Jordan.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And also then remind people, like, look, I'm probably the richest person you've ever been in the same room with, but I'm in rooms with Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan doesn't like me.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And the other thing is he's now old enough that now you just talk about aging, which is universal. Like, I do think there's a certain thing where people like, well, once you're like a billionaire and you, you're unrelatable, like, well, people age, people all have bodies. Even though he has, like, access to different things. And it's just a special about, like, really smart observations about getting older. And I think the last thing I'll say about it is he has writers. And I think if you're at that level, you should, because these are people working forever are just people who. They probably are still richer than most people, you know, at this point because they work with Kevin. But they can be like, this is normal.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

This is like, allows you to have self awareness, I think gets robbed from you when you get that famous. Other specials I might have included Roy Wood Jr. S Hulu special.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

The Ali Siddiq had two specials this year. I thought they both were really strong. I might have put Adam Pally's special in because I, he set out to make a special that stand up comedians wouldn't like and he succeeded that. And there's something I really admire about that pugnacious quality. Is that the right word?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Pugnacious is correct. We feel differently about that special.

[Jesse David Fox]

Sure. And we're not, we have too many specials get into. We're not going to litigate. Sarah Sherman special came out in December.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

That is the one that I think.

[Jesse David Fox]

And I'm like, why did you do this?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yes, that is, that is the one this year where I looked at it.

[Jesse David Fox]

And was like, well, it's not December at all. No, you could have put that out in October.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And I can't. I don't know what would have happened.

[Jesse David Fox]

But such a spooky special. Yes. There. Yeah. So there's, there's, there's a ton. But we're not going to get into it. We're going to talk about your list. All right, so we will go into your list going 10 to 1 again. This is Katherine Van Arendog's list published on vulture.com of the best specials, 2025. So number 10 is Jordan Jensen's Take Me With You, Netflix. Com.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. I have also been doing this job long enough that I am sometimes the person who writes a blurb for a comedian that you should or will know. And then I later see the special and feel I'm like, yes, we do. And now know this person. Jordan's had an interesting year and I.

[Jesse David Fox]

She's in the Bradley Cooper movie. So she's in this Bradley Cooper movie. She's like the fifth lead in this Bradley Cooper movie. She's really good in it. And also most people now know her as the person who went viral on Stavros's podcast as you talked about here for a very confusing thing she was trying to talk about around transgender people.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Transgender people. A very unlikely thing for a comedian to go viral for talking about some.

[Jesse David Fox]

Of the stuff that is kind of she tries to get at in the special, but keep on going.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Right. So I had been, I had been familiar both with Jordan's work and sort of her Persona and the form of intense, often body humiliation, self deprecating approach that she brings. But I hadn't seen a full hour from her and it was something that I was really curious like what a full hour would actually look like. It is a strange special to talk about because I also think there's maybe no special this year that I watched and laughed at as much While also feeling quite bummed. And that is a response to art that I think is valuable and interesting and it will stick with you. I don't recommend necessarily that you set out trying to make comedy feel that way. But it is auto fiction. Like the way we talk about autofiction in a novel often where you're like. Where it's a sort of Miranda July, like, I can't believe you're telling me these things about a person who is not you, but clearly is you, or the fact that your brain produced it means that it's enough you, that it doesn't matter. And I don't know how to feel about you. And I don't know how you feel about you. This is what this special feels like.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And I was captivated by that element of it. I was captivated by the writing of it, which I think is really tight. And it just felt like one of the ones that I was still thinking about.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. It's a lot of oofs.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

You know, there's a sex. At some point, she goes, if you're thinking, there's one more joke about me having sex with my dad. And if you're thinking, if there's one more joke about her having sex with her dad, I'm gonna leave now. There's gonna be. And they're just. It assaults you with that. And I choose that word somewhat specifically. Like it. There is a question of, like, are you allowed to do this? Right. So essentially, like, the part that is toughest to listen to is she talks about that her dad would have sex around her a lot. And that had negative effects on her in many ways. And it really is unfortunate, and she finds humor in it, but also not. The line that I wrote down is like. She was like. You might say, oh, if I heard my parents having sex, I'd kill myself. And she goes, yeah, I want to die every day. And you're like, how am I supposed to feel about it? It really is interesting. I mean, the thing. The question is sort of like, she opened for Louis ck. It reminds one of the specific era of Louis CK where we would, like, constantly talk about masturbating in front of people that you then, like, look back upon. And it's not to say that, like, the audience must give consent, but you're. You have to wonder is, like, is doing this worthy experience? Like, was the audience getting out this? Because clearly it's clear what she is getting out of being able to do it.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

It's, why am I in this?

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And I do think you get enough insight into the human experience and it's funny enough. It just is a lot. And if you go, I don't know if I want that experience. Like, don't, don't watch it because it will be that. Like, it will. She knows the exact amount for certain people's lines that she's comfortable with, but certain people be like, actually, my line is, I want none of this, so don't. It's going to be more of it than you kind of expect. Like, it's, let's say it's like six times more than you expect about wanting to have sex with her dad in a way that is not flippant. It's like, not just a joke. It like actually sort of rooted in something really complicated where you're like, you feel complicit in a sort of weird way be in allowing her to indulge that thinking. It's. But again, it's a fascinating watch and the writing is strong and funny.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Number nine, earthquake joke telling business netflix.com.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, this is a special that I. This would, I would probably slot into the. I haven't talked about some about Earthquake on one of these lists in the past, and it felt like it was a really good moment to do it because this special has one of those big, like, I've been in this industry for a long time and I'm going to be using this particular hour to reflect on things to. It's a. I wouldn't say it's a career capper because obviously Earthquake's going to be out here for a long time. But it does have this sense of denoting, like, who he is at this particular point in his career, what his style is. And it is, it is just so accomplished in. He walks on. On that stage, you know, exactly his thing. It is so polished. He has a catchphrase, which I found I often find catchphrases to be fun and then frustrating. And this one I found instead does the thing that you want the catchphrase to actually do, which is to build and build and build. This catchphrase that he has is that these aren't jokes. And the first time he says it, it is a pure throwaway. And he is so good at bringing it back over and over again. It is also a really, it's like the most obvious and yet sly way of doing political comedy right now, which there is not a lot of Trump stuff on this list, which I think is really interesting. This was not what this list looked like a couple of years ago. For sure. And he's one of the few and one of the ways that he does that is to talk about, you know, major issues of immigration and, and racism. And then when he says these aren't jokes, it really is an incredibly effective little dart into exactly the thing that he wants to communicate to his audience. I turned it on, not particularly expecting to be captivated by it, and then found myself about 40 minutes in thinking like, oh man, earthquake's so good at this.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then it's over.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

I mean he's one of the great comedians working. So it's, it is one of those things that is saying that's hard to know when to put on list and not because everyone is sort of a display of a person who has mastered being a stand up comedian. And it's where he just has, you know, I've talked to him about, it's the, the earthquake rhythm of just where he sets up a premise and it's like on to the next thing and he just, it, it is so stripped down and yet it sort of just, it is a roaring laugh that just sort of builds and builds. And while also like he's like secretly really poetic at times. I was thinking about, he's like, I went to sleep on election night and then I woke up and it looked like someone shot America. And I'm like, that's. I don't even know where I would categorize that. But that is a beautiful sentiment. Right? And it's, and he has room for it because he just is, it is a testament to that when you're so good at it, that you can have poetic moments, you can have like insecure moments, while also being confident. There's the part about sex that is so fascinating because he's mostly talking about sexual. Not failing to being able to get it up or whatever or using a vibrator and stuff like that, but talking about it as if he's talking confidently and you. And that paradox is a fascinating thing to consume, but it really is. He is, it's not even like he figured out a formula. He just as is being like mastered just being a stand up comedian and, and knowing exactly the type of piece he wants to do. It's like his specials are less than an hour because like I got in, I got out. That's what it is. And he understands like the piece is the piece where I think everyone else feels like the form is. They're just fitting themselves in a form and it's, it's, it's exciting just to Be like, oh, he has more. And he puts out tons of specials. And that's the thing where it's, like, hard to know, like, what is exceptional when a person is exceptional. But, like, ultimately you're, like, you're seeing a person really good and stand up, and it's. It's. It's so satisfying.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. The point about confidence, I think, is. Is good and interesting and related to the political point because it also feels like a year where people who were recording specials about a year ago did not know what to say or how to feel or what the mood was going to be. And it. And it. I think a lot of the trepidation that we have seen or at least absence of political comedy and specials in the last year is because people. Because it felt like first the primary response was exhaustion, and then like, what are we gonna do about this? I don't. People don't want Orange man bad anymore. And to see somebody like Earthquake just stand on a stage and say, no. I mean, I don't know exactly when he taped this, but no, I know exactly how I feel about this. I am not a barometer for someone else. I am me standing on a stage, which it takes so much sense of self to be able to do that.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Because I think a lot of comedians have gotten in their head about not knowing anymore. What. Like, they don't want to be preaching to the choir, and they don't want. They don't. Comedy satire doesn't do anything. They just completely are lost. And it is a sense of. She's just sort of like, this is my art form, and I care about this. I care about America. I have a job to this audience. They are living in this country as well. So I'm going to talk about how this guy sucks.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's just one of those things where it's like, watch. Watch it and be like, this is this. Don't be Earthquake. But be like, this is what it means to know what your. Your instrument is and knows what you're trying to do with the form.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

All right. Number eight. Ian Edwards. Untitled YouTube.com.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. One of the bigger surprises for me this year, I did not know Ian's work very well. I think you were the one who sent this one to me and was like, this one you do have to watch. And I just would happily. I think I maybe rewatched this one more than a lot of them. Just, they're so fun in little sections. They are so. He is such a great writer. And I had this thing about airplane jokes. I hate airplane and airport comedy. Nothing to me says I am a comedian and my only life experience is to be flying around the country. And doesn't other that happens to other people too. So I guess that's what I'm gonna talk about. Drives me insane. Ian Edwards. A good airplane joke. I couldn't believe it. And I think there's a lot of this special that is doing exactly that where it is all of the sort of standard, you know, it's sex with your wife and infidelity and I mean greatest hits of these sorts of things. And every single time he just sort of walks into the space of that topic, picks up the oddest object inside and goes like, but what if I turned this infidelity joke into this much weirder thing about gratitude and threesomes and, and power dynamics in a marriage. Does a really fun self deprecating joke about his jumpsuit in the middle, which I think works really well. I just, I, I loved this special.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. That airplane joke gets to a point because it's not even that far into the special. But you're like, he's showing off.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

To be like, you can do this to other comedians. You can write better. It's not like any topic is unwritable. Yeah, right. It's like, I mean, I bring this up to you all the time, but it's like, I like still life paintings. And you can, and anytime all through generations, you can figure out new ways of doing it. But if you're doing it the same way the old people are doing it, then it's not going to be interesting. And there is a matter of this where there's a thing that comedians say that they'll hear, they'll like listen to the premise of a joke and pause and they can guess the punchline. And it truly is a game of being like, no, I am not doing that direction. I mean, even the first joke, you think he talks about gender reveal parties, which is a hack premise already.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Totally. Yes.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then he is bringing up the idea of trans children. You're like, oh, this isn't, these are two hack premises. And he's doing it at the Comedy Store, which is a place that is sort of associated with, with especially even doing trans material. And then you're like, oh, this is like not the angle of this at all. Yeah. And there is just sort of the rhythm of like, this is not that angle at all. Like, that's what the, the special is about. It is a very much being like, it's a Testament to his joke writing and the ability to, like, have clever thinking. I mean, like, they're just like twists and turns and jokes will not. You'll think you're like, okay, well, that's the end of this premise. Like the joke about Handmaid's Tale. Yeah, you're just sort of like, it's about Handmaid's Tale, like, oh, this is like the Harriman Tubbitt story. And then you're just going like. And. And then next thing you know, you're just like, oh, this is not at all what you thought it was. And it really is thrilling to watch. And I do think, like, this is the special. I think, like, comedians should study being like you. The. You have the premise now. It's like you can just say anything you want, figure out ways to get it, and the audience still feel satisfied being like, oh, it's not like everything is random. It's like everything is completely makes sense. It's just different than like, what everyone else is going to like. He. He is foregoing all the obvious jokes on and. Yeah, he's foregoing all the obvious jokes. And to prove that he's doing that, he's picking obvious premises.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I also think it's worth thinking about his just stage Persona, which is still. It is quite contained. It is not doing any kind of like, cueing where any laughs are supposed to be. It is not. It is really restrained as far as. It's not as far as a sort of. He's not deadpan.

[Jesse David Fox]

No.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

But it is businesslike in a way that I find really appealing.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a little like Mitch Hedberg, but like just methodical in it. And I do think it's a shot at the Belly Room in the Comedy Store, which is a place people shot and looks really nice. It just sort of one of those things where you're like, oh, when you have fluorescent lights and you light it, you shoot it. Well, fluorescent lights look nice. Yeah, it's like a really small thing, but. And it worked. Again, you're shooting it not at a weird location or a grandiose location. All sort of really thoughtful, but not. Not too pretentious. It's just sort of like, oh, everything is done with care. Which reflects that, like, all the jokes are gonna be really cared for. Number seven, Bill Burr, drop dead years. Hulu.com Hulu enters the stand up special space.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I am a sucker for a Bill Burr special. I began this one and had the exact same experience that I often have with a Bill Burr special. Which is that I watched the first 15 minutes and I'm like, ugh, maybe this is gonna be the one that I'm. That I just can't get on board with. And then about 40 or 45 minutes in, I end up slacking, probably you, possibly our editor Meg, and being like, God damn it, Bill. Bur again, I just, I. I think the reason that this one brought me around is the same kind of arc that a lot of his specials in the last several years have gone on, which is that he starts with this almost impulsive throat clearing device where he gets to just say a bunch of terrible topics and then everyone gets to laugh at racism, and then he can move on and actually talk about, in this case, mortality in a really poignant, thoughtful, devastating way. And this is Bill Burr actually operating at, like, the height of his powers is to take that incredible anger and turn it back on himself and turn it at the audience a little and turn it at, like, the ultimate unfairness of our own mortality. And it is undeniable. There is just nothing you can. Nothing you can say about it now. I mean, talk about a weird year. Bill Burr has had one. And it is one of the things that I find most frustrating when something like a big, like, Riyadh Comedy Festival story happens, which is that it is then hard for me to go out and be like, you know, what's so great, though, is this special, right? You have to really navigate this odd public Persona that he is not building the way that I would love to be able to celebrate. But, man, the special's good.

[Jesse David Fox]

It's interesting to pick any one special of Bill's now that we can see a catalog. Anyone? Because really, the achievement of Bill's career, and it's one of the greatest achievements in the history of stand up comedy, in my opinion, is because he's done enough specials and he. Because he's honest in these specials, because he puts the parts that are less agreeable. But that's just sort of where he is at the time. He displays his anger before he talks about it. And. And that has evolved. He has shown a person grow over the course of 30 years. Really, really showing it and not judging along the way. Like, truly just being, like, by being honest on stage, you. And by being a fan, you're seeing a person grow and show that growth is hard. And a lot of comedians don't do it. They grow up to the point where they're famous and they go, well, this is good enough. It got to me being famous and who knows? The Sort of will it took for him as a person to grow after he was famous and rich. It is a. It is a rare thing for a human to do, let alone an artist, and then be willing to do it and be willing to lose fans, which is as he. As he said, there are people wishes. He's still angry. He's like that any. That's their journey. And he does not feel beholden to all. That is incredible. And there's just this moment in this special where he's talking about being at a funeral and having a realization that he is ruining his wife's life by being this way, which is a wild thing to say on stage, especially after decades of complaining about your wife. Right? And then he does the bit where he just being, like, maybe more agreeable, and he just agrees to the thing his wife says. And you can feel the audience being like, it's coming, and then it just does it. And it goes, my life's better and her life's better. And it is 30 years in the making to have that experience. To be able to have that experience. You cannot capture an hour without just telling, you know, you can go like, I used to be an angry guy and now I'm nice to my wife. It's not the same thing as being like, he. He was displaying his anger on stage and all these complicated feelings he had about being a husband and a father, and. And then you just feel it. And it's. It's. It is profound to get to have that experience. And I think, you know, I was part of the Bill Burr press store, so it's like. It's weird to see how certain things went viral from him, and then it created certain expectations for. For him that then people were disappointed by. I felt like complicit in sort of this whole thing. But it's like, ultimately, if you consume all of it, it's just a hodgepodge of opinions. He is not a fully reconciled person, and that is part of the promise he has. He's sort of like, instead of being like, here's a perfectly captured version of myself, and I'm going to convey in every special, this is exactly where I'm at. And you're gonna be like, well, that's hypocritical. It's like, yeah. He's like, I'm a hypocrite. It's my favorite type of person to be. It just makes it a fascinating thing to watch. And, like, who knows where it ends? It's just. But it is a thing of being able to Convey that is hard. Being willing to convey that is hard, but it. It pays off when you're like, oh, there are these moments of revelation that you've now built towards and you kind of can see that journey. I mean, like, who knows what it does to your audience, but it just is a fascinating thing to do over the course of a career. And like, seemingly he, you know, by this point, he knows he's doing it on purpose. Like, when he set out, he goes like, I'm going to grow the person as each. But now he's like, I have grown and I, you know. But he doesn't want to sell out who he used to be. Exactly. But he wants to convey that he grew. It's. It's. I don't know where you would. One would rank this special as a culmination of a thing, but it does. That culmination is like the. He is one of the main comedians of the year because of both that culmination and sort of how then the world at large had to reflect upon what that means to where he kind of currently is.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Staying at hulu atsuka okatsuka Father.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Hulu.com I watched Father, maybe one of the few specials that I watched, actually, that I purposely put on a large screen because nobody does color and dynamism on a stage quite the way she does. And I remember watching her previous special and thinking about sort of the kindercore element of her look and the way that it feeds into this stage. Interesting consideration of childlike behavior and the kinds of themes of childhood and parenting that have always been a part of her work, but not like very, very not in the way that any other comedian is doing. I'm a parent and here are my kids. And that is partly a result of just the reality of her life. She talks a lot about her relationship with her grandmother and her relationship with her mother, who has schizophrenia. And so this is a very different kind of relationship to parenting and to the idea of what humor and childlike behavior is. And was really curious how that would turn up in this new special. I felt like I understand who she is. Like, I get this approach. I think a lot of specials, after a big previous one, struggle with moving into the I told you all my best stories and who am I now? And I found this to be a really elegant way of negotiating all of those transitions into this particular phase of her career. The title refers to her father, but it also refers to her growing awareness of herself as the kind of helpless member of her marriage. And I think for so much comedy that exists about marriage and nagging wives and like, dynamic power relationships, I think this is a way of articulating that that neither sells herself or her spouse out, but also is really trying to get at all kinds of questions of helplessness and codependency and Roman and what all of those things mean. And I thought the themes were really tenderly laid out over the course of the whole hour. I always think her work is interesting. And I was impressed by this one.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the last special was so big and taken so seriously because it had a framing device.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

That it was nice not to feel constrained by a framing device and to be like, actually, this is the type of community it was. It did feel almost like, oh, this. I got to bring this back. But the thing about you mentioned with family and the background, it all relates like it is. It's the. The background is like an abstract sunset and her clothing is like she's in flower. And what she gets at is in many ways, she is doing my wife, my husband material, my kids material, all my parents. But it's all abstracted partly because the nature of specifics of her life, but also the nature of how she is approaching her comedy, which is like, ultimately it is visual first.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Both her and her husband are trained visual artists. Before they sort of became this, she was a dancer also. And so it is really understanding that these forms are abstract sense and these are. That we are just people and we. When we think of father based jokes, we think of father base as is. It really underlines like, what is art and how art works and how we think of forms. And if you can play, you can do a joke about your father. But doesn't have to be autobiographically about a father. And why does. Why is comedy so dependent on autobiography? I don't autobiography, especially considering her last special, it just raises a lot of questions about, like, form intentionally, while also being really silly and fun. Mm. It's a very fun special.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I think it also, for how much conversation we have had about crowd work, has a little bit of like, crowd work feel like just a. Just a slick hint, a sprinkle. And then she retains the control of that artistic experience basically immediately, which I find, you know, if that is something that is sort of required or not required, clearly, because many of these don't do it. But if that is sort of a part of the style of the day, I think is a really thoughtful and artistic way of incorporating something like that.

[Jesse David Fox]

Number five, Marc Maron, Panicked HBO I.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Always open up A Marc Maron special with hope and joy in my heart and.

[Jesse David Fox]

Funny way of putting it, yes.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Am almost always rewarded by, you know, incredibly depressing dark comedy about how the world is falling apart. But that is what the hope and joy in my heart was actually hoping for. So it has been fulfilled. I think this is a special. The reason that it is five and not one or two is that it is a case where in the last couple years, the Marin specials have both by coincidence of timing and by the reality of sort of how he is tuned into what the world feels like, have been these really striking pieces of art that speak to the experience of now. This is still that, but it is more specific to his version of now than I think some of them have been. They don't feel quite as universal. And. And so I think that is sort of the reason why this is like a five Marin special and not a number one Marin special to me, but, like, it's a fantastic Marin special that doesn't really mean anything. I think that he uses the California fires to talk about the kinds of Marin style, the apocalyptic feelings that he tends to like to get at in a special like this, and then has this whole stretch on cats and owning cats and what it feels like to be responsible for these cats. That is a Persona that I am just so thrilled that he has really leaned into, because I think crotchety, furious old man hits so hard in 90 seconds. And there is. There's no way that that is something that I. I really want to live with. And I think he's been really thoughtful about picking the sides of himself that are softer and figuring out how to foreground them without undermining the other kinds of messages that he wants to be talking about. And then the end is this Taylor Swift thing that, like the Bill Burr special feels like this reflection on mortality. We will see this once again in this list. Feels like a lot of people were looking at themselves and being like, oh, wait, we're all going to die this year. And this one, once again, is this really beautifully personal thing that I don't want to say that Marc Maron talking about Taylor Swift is the same as Marc Maron talking about having cats. But they feel pretty structurally aligned to me.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, Taylor's cat coded.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Very cat coded. But I also mean feminine and soft and deliberately antithetical to the image of a sort of scruffy, bearded guy on a stage yelling at the clouds. And I appreciate how joyful and how willing he is to not just go to those places, but to make them into really the core of what this special is. I think it makes it stronger. It makes him stronger as an artist.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I think it's a good point. I think he. I think this is partly a reflection of a new audience he found post doing Instagram lives, which as he has noted was largely middle aged women. And I think he liked having that audience. And so he, he got to show that parts of. I mean, think it's his funniest special. That was the goal. Like it, if you talk, if you discuss the topics, you're like, this is bleak. We're like, this is this fun special. He's just like, even the fire story is so silly. And there is a moment at the end of that story where essentially, like it's not to spoil the entire story, but essentially he reacts wildly to the potential that he feels like he has to evacuate and he does. And then all the calamity happens. And then the next day he sort of returns and no one, everyone's just going about their day. And he had his own experience. And it is a beautiful depiction of sort of what it feels like, the days where what you're spitting out about the world we live in and that's not the day everyone else is. So then they're just like, what's the matter with you? Yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

It's also a really interesting development from something like End Times Fun, where the thing that you are feeling is like he is pointing to an apocalypse, that you are relieved that finally someone is pointing to the apocalypse like you are. His paranoia about the world is not just justified, it's like he's the only sane person in the world.

[Jesse David Fox]

And then Covid happened.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And then Covid happened. This is the opposite, right? This is him being like, I am still feeling like everyone, like the cliff is right in front of me. And then his panic, as per the title, becomes the point of the joke and not the sort of overarching perspective on the world.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I mean, the thing that I will think about with this special and I. I don't know what this, how I feel about it sort of critically. But this special, I think will define how specials are now approached, which is essentially you release a special and you do a press tour in which you talk about the things you talked about in the special and you. And it's almost like you do a director's commentary, like it all becomes part of the special. I was talking to a comedian who was like, I don't know, you know, for this part. And they're like, I don't know what the point of the special is, am I just making clips? And I was like, I think Mark is the example which is like that's how you make a special feel. Like it was a really big deal. Which you essentially force the transcendence of the special by constantly being in clips and you're talking about the same things and people are know you're doing the special. Right. Like the special is tied into WTF ending. And in many ways it is the manifestation of WTF ending. I feel like Morgville talked about the, the special and the fact that WTF WTF was ending then the fact that WTF then ended a couple months later and it's. I don't know how I feel about it. Like as a person who likes stand up specials and want them to be seen as contained art forms, it does break that. But I do think undeniably this is going to be revolutionary because I do think this will be the model that comedians try to approach which is like it's not just doing press, it's just because the flattening of any everything and people are receiving clips. You want to essentially create a time, an era. Taylor Swift and everything is cohesive with that era, right? So it's like, oh, when I'm doing press I'm in the panicked era. And people feel it as, as connected because that's how they are relate, that's their relationship to art or comedy. Now is that good or bad? I think it's a different conversation, but it is what is. And he figured out how to master it. So like he succeeded at a game that hypothetically, as at the age he is, should not have been the game he figured out how to do. But he figured it out.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I think it's not good by the way.

[Jesse David Fox]

But sure, we don't have time for it. I think it's terrible, I think it's awful.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

But I think movie presses are already bearing out that you rob from the interest in the film if you spend too much energy in the press.

[Jesse David Fox]

I saw someone on podcast was saying there's like a businessy podcast being like at this point celebrities or actors should pay to be in movies because actually the most money they get is from the press tour they get to do for a movie. And you go, I get what they're saying.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I have a truly 15 minute tangent on Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Season 2, which we will not be doing in the context of this podcast. But it's the same thing.

[Jesse David Fox]

I think the thing that has to be reckoned with as we have to reckon with is for most time, people like celebrity more than they liked art. And then we as millennials lived in this time where it seemed like people really liked the art. And does seem like we're now back to people mostly care about celebrity.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Well, most time in the recent, like, 20th century celebrity is a concept versus art.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

The longer history of that.

[Jesse David Fox]

But sure, yeah, yeah. 20th century phenomenon. It was like, celebrity, celebrity, celebrity. Then it's like, what if we all really loved reading about the TV shows we liked and taking everything seriously and like, yeah, that's great. We love art. And then people like, well, the options are influencers or art. We're going to pick influencers. Well, now we might as well have actors be influencers. And that, I guess, is better. But AI is going to replace all that stuff anyway. This all feels thematically connected.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yep.

[Jesse David Fox]

Number four, Cameron Esposito, four pills. Dropout tv.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Dropout tv. This is the second year with a Dropout special on it. I look forward to our new Dropout overlords taking over. I think that this special, there are a couple of specials this year. This was one of them that are not Covid specials, but feel like the long tail of a Covid special is finally turning into the kinds of things that even at the time, as we were saying, like when. When specials were starting to come out and everyone was doing sourdough jokes, it was like, this is not the real art that will be made about this era. This is the necessary throat clearing before we get to people who are actually processing what this did to them. And I think this is a case where with time, you watch how the sense of isolation and overwhelming personal. Just devastation and then moving through a terrible period in your life becomes. Not that Cameron Esposito's life is then like useful fodder for all of the rest of us processing this thing that happened. But because they are coincident, you can watch it and say, oh, I am able to have access to. And she is so good at explaining what this period felt like for her that I think allows everyone to be inside of that experience more. Now, the other thing about this, of course, is the art of it. Right?

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah. Which I was gonna. Can you explain first, explain how you saw what happens? Because it's not like it's a. There's a device, but not like many stand up comedian special devices. It is not like this is the obvious device and we're doing the device now. And this is what the device means.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yes. You begin watching this special and it is a standard special. She's on a stage, she is telling jokes for people. Part of the text of the special is that she has realized at some point that she's not sure that she's ever going to be able to do stand up again because she has a series of crises in her life and can't picture this relationship with an audience anymore where she is on a stage and people are laughing at what she does. And then. And it takes quite a long time before this starts to happen.

[Jesse David Fox]

35 minutes.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. You start to get very fast flashes of her in a white room by herself telling the same joke to no one. And then no one laughs. And in a way, it is earthquakes. These aren't jokes. Yeah, yeah, Catchphrase. But. But made really palpably terrifying. I think it communicates something. There have been other specials that play with no audiences and what this form looks like when you do not have a group of people who are actually responding in this live way to it. This one I found so physically affecting in a way that I think a lot of those aren't. And it is because you get to flash back and forth between them. I think it is very hard in a box with no audience for an hour to understand exactly what you are missing. And it is the experience of absence that really communicates that so gorgeously. And I also love. It would have been so obvious and frustrating if it had then had huge sections that were sort of white nightmare box version. And instead they really do remain flashes throughout and they feel, I think, somatic that way because you are never allowed to settle into the physical experience of them and you're never quite sure when they're going to come again. It's a really effective device.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I mean, I think cameras is an uncommonly graceful structure of. Structure of comedy, is what I. I said. I've said that about her multiple times because she is doing a. She is resisting the telling nature of comedy that people want from it. Right. They want you to be like, this is what it's about. And like, I'm now going to take away the funny parts now. And that's going to be because of that.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Something serious happened to me.

[Jesse David Fox]

Something serious happened to me. We've all seen that special that did that very famously and there's benefits to doing that. But as consumers of specials, I think we probably value a person making you feel it and not telling you, like, this is what you're supposed to feel about it. And. And she does it by being like, you don't want you. Her to cut away, right? And that's interesting, right? You're watching her do stand for 35 minutes and is about personal things. But you're like, she's an extremely charismatic person and she lets you experience that.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And it's joke structure, right? Like, she is still going. She's like talking about these very upsetting things. But, like, you still get punchlines, you still get releases.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah. And then you take it away and then you're like, I didn't like that. And you know, that's what she. She's trying to convey to you. That's. That's what her life now feels like. Right? Or that's the. That's what she's trying to convey, which is like now. So imagine how you did not, like after 35 minutes leaving this. Imagine if your life was only this. And now you have to leave it. And it's. It. It is useful that all those other specials existed because they're all on path to do something with it. I think ultimately Nanette, Drew, Michael needed to exist. So people were like, what? And then you can play with a little bit more. Like, ultimately the breakthroughs are gonna be like. I don't even say clunky is a bad way, but you had to like, jam it through where this is just sort of like, oh, this is really artful while also alive. And it made you. I mean, I known Cameron for a while and father a while, so it was particularly impactful because I don't want her to stop doing standup. But even if you've not seen any of it, I do think you get enough of like, oh, I don't want this to end in a way that I think is a matter of a cohesive understanding of the piece, which is fascinating. I had no idea this was. She was working on this. I had been thinking, like, where's Cameron? And then you're like, oh, this thing exists. And it's so fully realized. Yeah, it's. It is the thing. Yeah, that's it. It just sort of really is. I'm see if I wrote. Oh, the other thing I think is really amazing is, you know, like, they're just like mess ups. Yeah, they sort of build and it does make you be like, what those mess ups on purpose. You know, like, that's sort of an interesting. But then it builds and sort of reveals that these mess ups are sort of part of it. And you realize, like, they're on purpose in so much as even if they're by accident, they were not edited out.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

They are built into Design of the thing.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, it is wonderful. I want all dropout specials to sort of be like this.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Not exactly like this. Please don't do this.

[Jesse David Fox]

No, that'd be wild. But if you're listening, Sam Rice, like, there's only so many places that would allow a special to be like this. And if you are one of them, then, like, I need to encourage you to do more of this than comedians that are doing standard specials that sort of might appeal to your audience, but, like, you have a business to run. I'm not like, talking directly. Number three, Mike Birbiglia, the Good Life, netflix.com.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, this is yet again a like, oh, Catherine likes a Mike Birbiglia special. I'm so, so, so, so shocked.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, it's very lucky that Mike exists at the time when lists were made, because it just sort of like, he made specials for people who make a standup special list. And directly like his. My girlfriend's boyfriend was the year that I started doing lists. So you're like, oh, perfect timing for you to exist. Anyway.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. Here's what I will say about this one in particular, though. It felt, first of all like it was in conversation with what so many of the good specials that this year were about. We've already talked about Marin and Bill Burr and this looming sense of suddenly thinking about mortality, or perhaps not so suddenly, but now feeling like this moment is the right moment. And I. Not that this was purposely what was happening in the world, but you do kind of have to think about the sense of political doom and not knowing where to put that. And instead it can sort of come out in these ways of like, oh, well, we'll all die. And that is what this special is in a lot of ways. I accept that his last special was this even more explicitly. And I had. And I struggled more with it because I felt like it was trying to be formal in a way that alienated me from the thing that he was trying to get at. This sense of, it can all go away in a minute. Age is coming for us all. And I was so distracted by the devices of it, I think that it made it harder for me to really live in the space that he was talking about. And it turns out also that when you are a careful enough, structured enough writer, which Birbiglia sort of defined what the shape of that is for a standup special, it is almost more powerful to not rely on those kinds of. I don't wanna say cute in a denigrating way, but like, of the really heady abstractions because the structure of the writing is strong enough to get you there in a sneakier and sort of more emotionally effective way. It begins with what feels like a sort of. You're like, wait, I thought this was a Birbiglia special. And he's doing instead these, like, update y kinds of like, here's what's going on and here's who my family is, and here's how. And you know these characters now if you know his work. And then it gets to sneak in where you're like, oh, it's about his dad. Oh, what's going on with his dad? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I've tripped over the thing. And now I understand what we're doing. And it is. It is like the Cameron special where sort of halfway through, you realize the game that's been played this whole time. And when you can pull off a magic show like that, it is. It just absolutely gets you.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I have so many to say about it. I think it's really great. So this was the special that. There was a good one TV special that aired on Peacock. I don't know what year it is currently. Was it last year or two years ago? I have no idea. We filmed it in 2023, and so we filmed the first two weeks, or first, essentially two weeks, and then another two weeks a month later, whatever, of what was working on this. And we spent an amazing amount of time with a person who did not know what they were working towards. And if you watch back that on Peacock, and please do watch it so much that they're like, what is happening? We must make more of these. It is amazing because he does not know what he is working on. But if you watch that special, it sounds like a person who knows they're working on this. And I will say this. Beyond how rare it was for me to spend this much time with comedian. At the beginning of the process, all these people who spend much less time with comedy were in this weird position of being watching. We filmed like, eight of his hours when he was just, like, throwing out different things at work. And I remember him being like, I think this is gonna be like a show that's just jokes. You know, it's not gonna be anything. And I'd be like, I know what this show's about. I knew then. And then I told him, I think a year later goes, yeah, that's what the show's about. And I hadn't seen it. Which was essentially. So he says something special, which is like, you know, I do these shows. About these heavy topics. And the last show is about death. It's like, what. What's more serious than death? Like, what's more important than death? And I was. And I. He was talking to me. I'm on the other side of the camera. To go life. Right. This is a special about realizing you have to live. And what does that mean with the specter of death existing? That is. That is a much bigger topic than just death existing. And I think the problem with the last special was, like, actually the idea that we can die at every moment is, like, not that interesting in of itself. It is more interesting in the context of living. How do you live when you know that's the case? That's more interesting. How do you have mundane conversations with your daughter when you know that's the case? Yeah, that is fascinating. And I think Mike's great skill, like, it is unbelievable, is that if you look at the one sentence description of what all these trails are about. Yeah, that's obvious. He does not. He takes the longest road possible and the most complicated road possible to end on an extremely almost mundane answer. Because the answer is not that interesting. The answer is going through it. The answer is life. It is not the fact that we can die at every moment. And it is. I'd say it's definitely top three specials for me of his. And I think, like, that is noteworthy. I think there's something about the new one I really love the structure of. And I always have loved my girlfriend's boyfriend, but it's definitely his top three. And we'll see how it lasts. The other thing that is noteworthy about this special in the year of the Riyadh Comedy Festival is the section about visiting the Pope, right?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yes.

[Jesse David Fox]

So the reality comedy festival happened, and then a lot of comedians were like, well, we're bringing free speech there. And then they all came back and they used all that free speech. They had to talk about how great of experience it was and defend going, yeah. And someone goes like, well, it's like, well, what if all these comedians visited the Catholic Church? It's like, well, they all did.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

They all did.

[Jesse David Fox]

And Mike uses the fact that he visited as essentially a way to talk about how all of its problems with the Catholic Church and that that is being free speech. And I think it is a really interesting example because we'll see maybe a special come out next year and, you know, Bill Burr or whoever will talk about how bad actually the Saudi Arabian regime is, but does not seem like it. It seems like most people have dug in or have just sort of done a vague it's complicated. As if saying it's complicated is exhibiting free speech. And I don't think Mike is seen as that type of comedian. And even when he did this material, because Riyadh Comedy Festival didn't happen, he probably wasn't even thinking, like, I'm being a political comedian. Yeah, yeah. Like I'm being a personal comedian.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, I think so.

[Jesse David Fox]

Who's. Who was showing. This was what I was like with Catholicism growing up, and it relates to my parents and blah, blah, and. But now it adds an element to this special of kind of underlining, like, kind of what we expect from comedians on all aspects of it. This is how seriously we act. We asked you to take the free speech parts of your career, the structuring of your special. How what being open is for, what we're trying to go for. It's, it's, you know, it means a lot. The special matters to me a lot because of this thing. But it is really like he does. You know, he did it again. Like, he's laughing. People, like, people are. There's a lot of one man shows that are being done and they're like, kind of doing like lesser versions of Sleepwalk With Me, the show they did like 20 years ago. This is like he's on another plane of existence.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah, well. And also on the most personal, most petty and trivial level, I, as a parent, I'm just so glad that somebody finally called out the trampoline places. Those places suck.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yes. Number two. Steph Tolev, Filth Queen, netflix.com I don't.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I had so much fun watching this special. It was like just turning on, like walking into a carnival and somebody is. You know those, like one man band. Like in Mary Poppins, where he's got the cymbals.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And the horn thing like this. And you're just like, that's such a silly, ridiculous thing to choose to do with your. Not just your body, but your whole self. And yet watching it feels like a magic show. And that is what this special is. She is a complete experience of a person on a stage, every inch of what she looks like, what she sounds like, how she moves, and what she is saying is completely cohesive toward the exact thing that she wants to communicate, which is that she is the grossest slime ball person to ever walk this earth. And so are you, and so am I, and so are all of these bodies that we are all trapped inside. And every single moment that we sit civilized with clothes on and pretend that that is not the reality of our existence is a lie. And she is thrilled to be able to stand on a stage and talk about how long she farts during sex and how much time like exactly the quality of each one of her bowel movements and feel. And instead of making the turn towards death, it is like we all get to do this every day and we should be celebrating how absurd this is in every single moment. I think it is one of those ones where you watch the first couple minutes and you think, okay, but how do you sustain this?

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And then it just. She digs to the center of the earth of how gross every single one of us can be in every moment of our lives. It's honestly aspirational in that regard. And I would happily watch this over and over again. My primary regret is that my children are not old enough to just show this to them right now. I can't show it to them. I am their mother. All I can do is hope that somehow they stumble upon it later. But I feel like it is a formative experience that all children, and particularly like female gendered children should have.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I think a 10 year old can watch it. It's interesting when you frame it that way. In many ways this is like Mike's special. There's the book, the Denial of Death. And one of it is like the fundamental thing about being human is that we are gods that shit or something like that. I can't remember which is the philosophers. That death sort of that. And that's what this kind of is like. It is the mirror. She is the angel to Jordan Jensen's devil.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yes.

[Jesse David Fox]

But it is so life affirming and inspiring and in a weird way, and the thing that is so exciting or reminiscent to me is like, this is her first stand up special.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Doing comics for a really long time. This is what first specials used to be like because people didn't get specials young and they didn't put out specials on YouTube because they're like, well, I have this material. I'm clipping it up anyway. Like, oh, what? Instead? Let's wait until I break, you know, like post 40, I think she's over 40, have the breakthrough of like, who exactly am as an artist and then give you the greatest hits of it. And it is so. There's so many types of ways she's funny. Just her voice is funny. It's kind of Tim Robinson at time. And then her body is so. How she hunches. I believe I describe her as a wolverine with the soul Of a poet. Like, the writing is so dense. And it also is a special that if you. I repeat jokes of it as, you know, cisgender man. Two people kind of doing impression of her, and they laugh, and I'm me, you know? And it's because the writing is so good. The way she does the voice, the. The part that I never will forget is she's describing taking nude photographs and her attempts at photographing her vagina and then being like it was backlit. And then she writes spooky stuff, shadowy, and then just keeps on going. Yeah. She goes. It's like she goes cave. Like, almost as if a fog was gonna roll through at any moment and a weary traveler's gonna come by. Then she does the opposite. She talks about lighting in front because too much lighting. And she describes it as. Looks like an escaped prisoner on a back wall. And it is a joy. It is the special I would recommend to the most people.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Because you're like, this is what. When people are like, oh, you read Wakami for a living, or whatever. You must laugh all the time. And you're like, I laugh a good amount, but I'm not caught up in it. It's hard, especially when you're. And I'm like, you'll watch this. You'll be caught up in this tornado.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

Of just, like, disgusting. Such vividly described felt, but not in a way that you. It's not painful in the same way that Jordan's is.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Right.

[Jesse David Fox]

But it is the same thing of being like. There are moments where she'll describe something. You're like, my body feels.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah. No, it is like watching a cannon of diarrhea. But somehow. Somehow you're just thrilled to be there. It's incredible.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. Number one, Kumail Nanjiani, Night Thoughts, hulu.com.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

This is a special that I was a little bit beaten over the head by. By you.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And I. Speaking to the problem of the calendar. This special is not out until December. I then had to chase down a publicist to send them to me. I was like, oh, Jesse's making me watch this thing. And I don't. Stupid pics file. I hate this. Why? And then I began it, and I was like, oh, yeah, Kumail. Oh, right. He is pretty good at this. And then I got. So there's this first section that is about his cat, and then about also this very bizarre experience that he had watching an intruder in his home. And I was like, okay, so this is sort of. He's doing comedy about what his life is like now and he's been gone for a while and coming back and then he gets into this middle section that is everything that you if in your head you were like, oh, Kamale, isn't he that Marvel guy? And he used to do comedy and he doesn't anymore. Hasn't he had kind of a weird last several years in your wildest dreams of what it might be like to listen to a smart, thoughtful person live inside the strangeness of that experience. You are not prepared for how thoughtful and.

[Jesse David Fox]

How.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

How emotional and controlled and considered he is about the human experience of how. Of the dissociation of it's Covid. But then also digital lives, social media, press tours, being famous. And there are so many comedians. We have talked about this in the past. We've already talked about it in this episode. You get famous and you can't relate to people anymore and your lives are no longer sort of recognizable. And so then what do you stand on a stage and talk about? And I think even if this special were just a very smart person able to unpack that, it would already be this incredibly fascinating document. What he is able to do is to take that and then actually live inside how what the world has turned into makes us all experience that same thing with him. And it is astonishing how effective and moving it is for him to sort of open himself up and then be like, guess what? Actually, we're all in this place together. It's incredible.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I mean, the comparison I think of right now is sort of Richard Pryor in two ways. One, there is something really impactful about a comedian who stops and comes back. Right. So then when they come back, well, they're like, what are they going to say now? And for Richard Priory, we're talking about like weeks and, you know, it's really not. But the quitting and often happens kind of around 40. And I think that a lot of comedians are having midlife crises that are partly spurred on by it's like less about mortality, but it's almost like the strikes inspired mortality issues with them. And then. And Kumail is definitely an example of that. But Richard Pryor is like a reminder about, like, why it's useful for comedians to be famous right there. Which is there is something about the public image of a comedian or a famous person that exists, that's existed for a modern conception of fame, as you've noted in the 20th century and forward. And being like, that's life is our perception of this person being famous. And then they have the ability to Be like, this is what it's really like. And now, obviously there's layers at stage, but, like just that revealing behind the curtain is ultimately like religion esque. Right, Right. You see the shadow of a thing and then being like, do you know that thing that we think of as existence? Well, that's actually a shadow. Right. Like, the thing I thought about Kumail is like, there, I read this is the allegory of the cave. And in a lot of ways, and partly I think he has the benefit of the fact that he was gone for a long time.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And I think it's in two ways. One, he was being a person in therapy, getting to have these observations. So it's the greatest hits of everything he has thought.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And they're thought through. Not in front of people. He had to figure out how to make it funny. He had to figure out what he was like as a comedian. But there's also the fact that the thing that I watch this special and I. I am processing is like, it is so good. He is so good at writing comedy that I go, what was I watching these last seven years? Or whatever. I'm the person chained up. We all are chained. Watching what is on these streaming services and being. This is good, right? You're like, this is good. It's all comparative. And then out of nowhere, a person from the past shows up doing what it was like in the past.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And you're like, wait, so it was better. Truly does feel like he was just dropped into the now with the skills of that. And the part, like, even the intruder part, it is so funny. It gets to a part where it's just like three minutes straight of new punchlines. And you're like, that is not really what people are doing. It's a mix of. The standards are sort of lowered in weird ways. Streaming services are telling people put out specials every two years. And you don't notice the lessening of quality because it is like frogs in the boiling water where slowly everyone's. The quality of everything is lower. So we're just sort of like, yeah, no, this is the quality.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

So a friend of mine was describing. Had seen Pluribus before I had seen it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And I was like, how is it? And he was like, it's like if you only had frozen yogurt. And then somebody was like, would you like ice cream?

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, it's 100%. It does. It feels like new colors exist where you're like, oh, yeah, colors. Red, blue, yellow. Those are the colors. Right. And you're like, no, there's more. You're like, no, they're not. And also, I'm fine with these colors. Yeah, it's colors. It's better than the black and white stuff. And it is. It's hard. It almost feels weird to be so grandiose because it's not. Like, the special is like, he's still fairly mild mannered. And that is part of the part. Right? Like, part of it is like, he.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Did not come back a different person.

[Jesse David Fox]

No.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

But it does have that thing. Oh, God. This is another incredibly terrible analogy. But when you are watching, like, you know, or even just here is a baby photo, and then you get like, when they graduated from high school, like, we do not get to have. When you put them right up next to each other, you're like, oh, my God, they turned into a different person. It's the same thing. But when you are experiencing it in just little slices of Instagram stories from your friends, you're like, oh, wow, their kids are bigger now. That is. It doesn't have the same impact.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because it's like, ultimately what we are talking about is the feeling of a fully composed piece of work compared to the bite size amounts of pieces of work that we get, that feels like it is satisfying but is not. We've been trained to find this satisfying. I mean, I guess food is a good analogy of just sort of like, we could have 9 million analogies about how things have gotten slightly worse, that is, that are hackneyed. But, like, we all try to come up with our own analogies, but it does feel like we've been given this slop and we're like, oh, the slop's good this year. And then someone's like, you know, you see food, you're like, food. That was the thing, right?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

And.

[Jesse David Fox]

And this is all putting so much on Kumail's back. But it did feel like the thing that I was. Why I was so excited to tell people it, because I think the assumption was going. The assumption was, he'll be pretty good. Like, Camille was. I remember Camille being pretty good. And he's a famous person. He only had so much time, so it'll be like, pretty good. And then I'd be like, no. Like, weirdly, it's like the best performed comedy in ages. Because the thing that you sort of forget is that he was on the path to be, like, great at it. And you forget that greatness exists because we're all siloed. You just sort of forget that things can be transcendently good. And and that is what this is a testament to. Like I don't think and I I think he partly that was partly a goal. The previous episode of this podcast if you've gotten this far is me talking to him about it and but I will. I mean this is me putting the thumb. Putting a thumb on the scale which is he was not doing stand up. I thought he should be. I was able to convince him partly.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Literally remember having this conversation with you and then watching you at a vulture fest event being like my goal is to make you go back and do stand up.

[Jesse David Fox]

And he admits that I did. And Brett Goldstein also thank you. You put out special this year. You're a great but it's there are there we watch a lot of comedy and a lot of it is good and good is nice but you for there are people are able to reach other gears and to be fair like, like all art. It is rare and it might be every few years that things happen. But like it was like seeing this and then seeing James a Caster alive. You're like, oh, this is what made me want to do this.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Guys. Thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.

[Jesse David Fox]

Zoe. This thing weighs a ton. Drew, ski lift with your legs, man.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Santa. Santa, did you get my letter?

[Jesse David Fox]

He's talking to you britches. I'm not.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Of course he did.

[Jesse David Fox]

Right, Santa, you know my elf Drewski here. He handles the nice list and elf. I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. Right, Mrs. Claus?

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

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[Jesse David Fox]

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[Katherine Van Arendonk]

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[Jesse David Fox]

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[Katherine Van Arendonk]

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[Jesse David Fox]

Limu Emu and Doug, here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundred with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty. Liberty Savings Fairy Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts. And it is, and I can't stress enough, it is such good, funny joke writing. If you like specials that are funny. He does that while also having the excitement being like, well, he's probably so jacked now that he can't do comedy at all. Right. And even how he thought about approaching that fact.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. That was the moment. As soon as he touched on that thing, I was like, oh, this is what this special is.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah. And he talked. I mean, we talk about on the interview, like, he's like, I have to wear a shirt that shows that I'm strong now because I need to bring that into the space. Yeah, right. That's the, that's the conflict. That is the tension that he gets to play with by being like, oh, those are those muscles that we heard about on. On the Internet. What are they doing? Right. And then he tells you, like, whoa, those muscles are so much more complicated. Maybe our existence is more complicated than we realize is. Yeah. I was just so happy that it got to exist. We're talking before it's released. I have no idea. My edits, like, and everyone's eyes will be open, but who knows? But it. I was just. Yeah, I was like, this is the best special year I remember. I can't remember when I followed up to try to make it so you'd. He was like, well, it'll definitely be towards the top. And I was like, I think it should be number one.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

I want to be clear, you do not have that power over this list. If you did, there would be many changes.

[Jesse David Fox]

Not many changes. Also, the changes would be to the bottom five.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Yeah.

[Jesse David Fox]

And I think the bottom five is just sort of like the stories you're telling with the sort of list you're doing. And I didn't have to make a list, so I didn't have to be like, oh, this is the story I'm telling you. Yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Every year it's like, but you didn't include these seven other people. And you're like, yeah, it's a list of 10 people, Jesse.

[Jesse David Fox]

Yeah, I get it. And then that's fine. That's why you make the list. Or that. And I think the list is a, you know, a living, breathing document. No, it's not. It's not that. It's the opposite. It is a snapshot. Yeah.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

That is. That is it.

[Jesse David Fox]

Thank you so much.

[Katherine Van Arendonk]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Jesse David Fox]

That's it for another episode of Good One. Good One is produced by myself, Zachary Mack, Neal Janowitz and Ann Victoria Clark. Music composed by Brandon McFarland. Write a review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. I am Jesse David Fox, and you can follow me at Jesse David Fox. Buy my book, comedy book, wherever books are sold. Thanks for listening to Good One from New York Magazine magazine. You can subscribe to the [e-mail] pod we're back with a new episode next week. Have a good one.