Once they cross a certain threshold of Fame and wealth its over Similar to how Steve Martin said eventually the crowds laugh at anything you say and you lose the ability to figure out what's really funny, so he retired from stand-up
Definitely. His best was Completely Normal (which was great) and each successive special has gone down in quality from the previous one to where I stopped following him
The sweet spot is dudes that those rich and out of touch dudes talk about as up and comers. Guys that are famous enough to get a lot of respect from other comedians but aren't so famous that they're super rich and disconnected. Sam Morrill and Mark Normand are the types that I'm talking about.
Add in Joe List and you've got a great list. I think comics get money and just throw it on cruise control. No many people are willing to be out on the road 45-50 weekends a year and doing spots during the week. They also have a lot more pressure to rush out specials before they're fully flushed out and you can always tell.
Bill Burr another who was legitimately funny and had good social commentary, far above and beyond what Segura could do, and it just slowly devolved into a guy just complaining on stage for an hour.
Shane rebounded nicely, but acting like losing out on SNL was negligible to all potential career outcomes is kind of silly. I think he’d have been bigger, sooner. I think he’d have crushed on SNL and really stood out, creating a little more mainstream appeal, potentially opening up more tv/movie opportunities. Gillis could’ve had an Adam Sandler trajectory, I think he has that comedic lead charisma. Now he’s kind of going a different route where he’s going to be a road dog for life and maybe he’ll have an eight episode arc on a good HBO show. I thought Beautiful Dogs was kinda meh. It’s bizarre how in the last 18mos, the social circles he runs in now, and his biggest takeaways for bits are trips to Australia and touring George Washington’s house. Like make fun of all the celebrity degenerates you’ve befriended in the last year.
would put Jeselnik in there although he's much more A lister than those two his set a few weeks was fucking great and once again took a shot at comedians who whine about 'cancel culture'
Bert has never been funny to me. Never have seen the appeal. Burr is still my favorite comedian and has been since 2008. His weekly podcasts are funnier to me than of anyone’s specials. Sam Morrill is slowly become one of my favorites. He was on Burr’s podcast this past Thursday and they were good together.
I saw Jeselnik on Friday and thought his set was terrific as well. I’d never seen him before but he was always on my list of comedians to see if possible. He did not disappoint at all.
Shane is doing far better financially now than if he had stayed on SNL. You’re nuts. Him getting fired from SNL made his patreon explode to where it’s making 200-400k a month.
I'm not even sure it lowered his ceiling. I'm sure he'll get some sitcom and movie interest with his background.
Yeah that’s not what I was really arguing. He said SNL would’ve paid ~$125k/yr, and no doubt he’s making much much more now, but the ceiling is different imo. Like his first special(s) wouldn’t have been self produced, free on YT, straight to Prime/iTunes if he were an established/rising star on SNL with more mainstream exposure. We’ll see. I think it’ll be a testament to his sheer comedic ability, not being denied, more than anything, but I still believe it altered his career. His sketch comedy ability is better than his stand up imo, and I could have totally seen an Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell type trajectory with a few solid season of SNL.
Being a guy that barely gets on tv during snl isn't very lucrative. Odds of becoming a star from it are pretty low.
Don't think you can discount the Rogan bump for all of this that wouldn't have happened if he was on SNL either. All not provable but no I don't think he's as talented as either of them and I think it says a lot that you're referencing two guys over the last 35 years as comps vs the dozens of other very talented people going through those halls.
I don't think he's better than Bobby moynihan who hasn't really been able to get stuff going outside snl
Count me in the “chef goldblum wouldn’t have thrived on snl” camp. The best thing that happened to him was the whole snl kerfuffle.
Of what I've seen his sketch stuff is much better than his stand up. But that doesn't always translate to SNL success either. Should clarify his money success is very much better now but artistic success I dunno.
He wasn’t seeing the camera near enough to matter on snl. His stage presence doesn’t translate in that medium imo.
Am I crazy to think the Rogan effect is a net negative in some percentage of outcomes? And maybe that’ll be more obvious in like ten years… idk.
i get that he thinks he's doing a bit but everyone is aware this is what he thinks and is leaning into it 10% more for plausible deniability
It’s like beating a dead horse at the point but Segura et al. have completely lost what made them enjoyable imo.
Saw Nate Bargatze last night at Radio City. Excellent. His father opened with magic tricks. Everyone loved it.
Schulz selling out the garden in 70 minutes is pretty absurd. I'm admittedly biased as hell but I don't think fame has affected him much. He's a good dude as based on what I hear from other comedians and people that have worked with him.
Ray Romano did a drop in tonight at village underground, working on new shit. He did well considering it was test material
Never seen a minute of Matt Rife material before yesterday. I made it about five into the new Netflix special. His delivery/the way he talks is too big of a hurdle for me. I’m not his audience demographic judging by the crowd noise anyways.
the Rife backlash is going mainstream, seeing half of normie twitter going "oh I didn't know he was one of those comedians". being the hot crowdwork guy who got famous on tiktok then releasing a cliche andrew dice clay style special is a hysterical choice by him though.
I would see his crowd work clips online and for the most part they were fairly funny. Never watched any of his actual standup but thought it was cool a guy who’s been doing it for 10+ years finally got a break. Watched the Netflix special and chuckled a couple of times but it almost felt like he was trying so hard to either appeal to the guys or shake the “label” he’s gotten the past year that it was just forced and not very funny. I’m not clutching pearls or anything, just didn’t find the majority of it funny.
I think his crowd work stuff is hilarious. I turned his special off after five minutes because it wasn’t funny, at all. Even the crowd seemed a little confused at the first five minutes being amateur hour I thought.
i used to think crowd work had to be really hard, even harder than written material, but the last 4 years or so really made me rethink that in a major way