Episodes

PAIN The delightful charm monster, Patrick Holbert, joins us to pick away at PAIN in stand-up comedy. We talk about how pain is the source of much of stand-up, both physical and emotional, and how usually the audience needs to know that the pain is ultimately “ok” in order to laugh. We cover generational pain, the occupational hazards of talking about pain, how to refocus personal pain onto a “shared” experience rather than just making it about you, and how Patrick went about talking about his p...

GAY SHIT In this episode, the "illustrious" Jay Jurden joined us to gayly talk about gay humor and also humor about gayness. Our goal was to examine the relationship between stand-up comedy, homosexuality, and homophobia, tracing a path from Richard Pryor to the present. We cover how approaches to jokes about male homosexuality have shifted over the decades as American values have changed. We REALLY enjoyed listening to how crowds received this kind of material from one decade to the next. We as...

MORALITY The Daily Show’s Roy Wood Jr. examines MORALITY in the context of stand-up comedy. Stand-up dances the lines of right and wrong, good and bad, proper and improper. Sometimes the question is,”Why in the world are you behaving like this?” Other times it’s, “Why is the world behaving like this?” The comedy we laugh at the most always plays with transgression, so what are some methods a comedian uses can deal with topics that push our moral sensibilities? Roy discusses how he spoke with an...

CALLBACKS The 8’9″ LeClerc Andre crawled in on his hands and knees to get through the doorway to lay down on the ground while he helped us explore CALLBACKS in stand-up comedy. A specialty of his, LeClerc walked us through (crawled us through, really) how he writes callbacks, the effect they have on the crowd, and how much late night shows love callbacks for their short, 5 minute stand-up features. We compare and contrast callbacks with running gags, catchphrases, crowd work callbacks, and more,...

CLEAN (part 2 of 2) In this second part of our CLEAN comedy interview of the pathologically nice Steven Rogers, we jump right into great material. We listen, laugh, and geek out over it through the lens of everything we explored about clean comedy in part one, so if you haven’t listened to the first installment, do that now. The bits we picked are fantastic–you’ll get some legendary Ray Romano, a taste of the genius Finish comic, Ismo Leikola, and some early hilarity from the brilliant buffoon t...

CLEAN (part 1 of 2) It’s hard to say whether Steven Rogers is nicer than he is funny or vice-a-versa, but with Stephen Colbert and Brian Regan giving him their official thumbs up, the formula works. Steven will hate this description, but he’s so neighborly, let’s call him stand-up’s young Mr. Rogers. As such he joins us to discuss CLEAN as it relates to stand-up comedy. What the heck does clean even mean? Clean content? Clean presentation? Swears, innuendo, drugs, religion, politics, general mea...

The way-too-likable, philosophically funny comic, Bret Raybould, explores the role of PRESENCE in stand-up from a makeshift recording studio inside Bret's private plane. We break this topic down into "being present" and "stage presence", touching on the stages of learning, flow state, body language, not giving a fuck, and knowing your act. Bret tells us how dealt successfully with following SNL's Leslie Jones after she brought down the house. We dig into these aspects of presence and a lot more ...

PATREON LINK: https://www.patreon.com/letstalkaboutsets SEE JEFF (MCBRIDE) ON TOUR (6/2/19-July)! DETAILS AND TICKETS: http://www.jeffmcbride.com/shows COMEDIC STORYTELLING (AGAIN) The loquacious, award-winning raconteur and NYC stand-up comic, Jeff Simmermon, hopped on the mic for the show’s second foray into COMEDIC STORYTELLING. He explains his own simplified version of Dan Harmon’s simplified version of Christopher Vogler’s simplified version of Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With A Thousand Fa...

50 EPISODES AND >100K DOWNLOADS! Thank you to everyone who supports and listens to our show! And thank you to all of our guests and interns who’ve contributed their time and expertise! And thank you SOOOO much to our Patreons and the listeners who’ve sent us tips to help support what we do! CONTRAST Former NYC comedy wunderkind, now a full grown rocket-to-the-top funny manchild, Usama Siddiquee, returns to the show to explore the central pillar of laughter, CONTRAST. The foundation of humor, con...

FAMILY The hilarious and legendary Jackie Kashian joined us to talk about FAMILY in stand-up comedy. Everyone has a family, and everyone has family dysfunction, so this topic is one of the most fundamental, relatable, and powerful elements of stand-up. By its nature, making jokes about one’s roots involves talking about the problems, the disappointments, and the tragedies. But how do you make fun of your family without ruining your relationships? When does it work, and when doesn’t it? Some come...

Undeniably funny, whitely awkward Geoffrey Asmus joins us to explore THE SETUP in stand-up comedy. Like most things in life, most of the work goes into setting up. If the punchline is the slide, and the setup is the stairs to the top. What is a setup? How can you rework a setup to fix a joke? And even more comedy nerd questions! We also have a great time listening to and frog-dissecting material from two opposite ends of the stand-up spectrum: Rodney Dangerfield and Ari Shaffir.

Harrison Greenbaum shows how he actually applies all his theories from part 1 of JOKE THEORY to his stand-up writing and performance. We go step-by-step through some of his best material, laughing and geeking out the whole way. It's fucking awesome, so just listen to it. But make sure you've heard part 1 first, ok? (I'm so cranky, I've been working through technical fuckery on this second half for days.)

The magically funny, super accomplished, and hyper-analytical Comedy Cellar comic, Harrison Greenbaum, delivers a masterclass on JOKE THEORY! He enthusiastically shares his favorite joke theories he's learned from others, and he generously outlines his own original theories. These are, truly, some of the best and most actionable approaches to jokes we've ever heard!

Nationally touring, Brooklyn based comic Brian Enck examines COURAGE in stand-up comedy. It takes courage to start and to keep going. It takes courages to speak your "truth" or to speak candidly about your flaws, mistakes, or personal weirdness. It takes courage to look the fool. Yet it's that vulnerability that can yield some of the most powerfully funny comedy experiences. What are some tricks performers use to get the courage to act despite those fears? We cover this and a lot more via bits b...

NYC comedian, actor, & writer Sally Ann Hall explores the role of CONFIDENCE in stand-up comedy & and life via bits by Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman, and Mike Birbiglia. This one's a delicious ear treat!

Newly-minted Netflix "specialist" Kate Willett gets down and dirty with us on stand-up ANECDOTES. Anecdotes are distinct from storytelling, usually lacking the storytelling framework--beginning, middle, and end. They're "pointless." There's no emotional journey. Lives are not changed by an anecdotal incident. Yet these flimsy, insubstantial retellings of inconsequential events are the backbone of a lot of the best stand-up comedy. We explore this and more via bits by Brian Regan, Maria Bamford, ...

Jacob Williams (MTV's Wild 'N Out, Colbert, America's Got Talent, & a lot more) KILLED it in this episode! We absolutely could not stay on topic, and so what? This conversation was UNDENIABLY funny! Between all the goofing around, we hit every angle we could think of on SELF-DEPRECATION in stand-up comedy via bits by Adam Sandler, Demetri Martin, Tom Segura, David Cross, and Jacob Williams himself.

Fresh from a set on the Late Late Show with James Corden and just two days after dropping his new Comedy Central Records album, “Innocence,” the highly credited and ridiculously funny Joe Zimmerman graced us with a wide-ranging discussion loosely focused on PACING in stand-up comedy. Also of note, Joe responded to John Mulaney’s fervent public wish that he could steal one of Joe’s bits.

Award-winning comedy writer and stand-up comic, Dan Perlman, shares his perspective on PERSPECTIVE in stand-up comedy by geeking out with us on great material from Roy Wood Jr., Joe Rogan, and John Mulaney.

Carolines Breakout Artist Series headliner, Norlex Belma, breaks down THE ROOM in stand-up comedy. When comedians talk about the room, they're referring to a lot of performance parameters: the feel of the crowd, the kind of venue, the demographics, the kind of comedy scene, and the setup of the performance space itself, plus a lot about how he constructed his hour. Lots of comedy craft!

Conan alum Mike Recine is a national headliner & a hysterically twisted joke writer--the perfect guy to explore WRONG comedy. This hilariously earnest chat covers bits that are morally "wrong," factually incorrect, or illogical using material from Dave Chappelle, Patrice O'Neal, Anthony Jeselnik, & Mike Recine himself.

Jeff is off to Burning Man. We'll be back with our regular bi-weekly production schedule in the fall. For more information about the coolest fucking thing I've ever participated in, see burningman.org.

Andrea Allan, an aggressive, crazy, "wild animal" of a comedian, joins us to chart COMMITMENT through stand-up comedy via bits by Doug Stanhope, Eddie Murphy, and Kurt Metzger. We have a blast in this very dirty episode exploring commitment to character, to tone, to material, to act outs, and to oneself.

Happy 4th! Here's a GREAT mini-episode featuring the prolific linguistic genius, Myq Kaplan. Myq hilariously shares how he approaches presenting a minority opinion; and he gives in-depth explanations on both his process and attitude for generating new material.