From The Comic's Comic

Neal Brennan’s first big claim to fame came two decades ago when he co-created, wrote and executive produced Chappelle’s Show with his friend Dave Chappelle (with whom he’d previously collaborated on Half Baked). Since then, Chappelle has become both the biggest stand-up comedian in the world and a lightning rod for criticism. Brennan, meanwhile, has released three stand-up comedy specials of his own, and directed acclaimed specials for Al Madrigal, Michelle Wolf, and Seth Meyers. Crazy Good, Brennan’s fourth special, and third for Netflix, premiered in April 2024. Before that, he sat down with me on April Fool’s Day to explain why it’s foolish for us as a society to put our faith and trust in comedians to be our sources of news and/or moral leadership.

There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

Here’s a bit from Brennan’s new Netflix special in which he takes on crypto bro influencers, all while reframing the bit as if you’re looking at him on a cell phone just like one of those social media influencers.

How important then was it for you to be able to revisualize some of your bits differently?

I remember Jerrod Carmichael points out that I said to him at one point about his act. This is I don’t know 10 years ago And it’s kind of based on a thing that Chris Rock would say a lot, which is like this isn’t radio. It’s why Eddie Murphy moves so much. Because he’s like, give people something to look at. So the set behind me is expensive as hell. It changes colors. And then I do the framing bit, and then for the commercials, for the religious attack ads, I do the commercials. I try to make it more than just a man standing, talking, like more than a podcast.

I’m competing, we’re all competing with everything. So this idea of like, no, you should watch me sit. No, I’m not good enough to watch sit. I need every bell and whistle I can possibly throw with people ’cause I’m not. I need help. And I’m not afraid, I’m not like ashamed to say like, no, no, no, I want visuals and it’s also just, you know, most of these things end up as clips anyway. Even on clips on Instagram, there’s pictures if you’re talking about (something). There’s people in front of other video. It’s all been sort of charged. All mediums have to step up, except podcasts, which ironically could be two-and-a-half hours long and just two people talking. Somebody had a great observation of like, I can’t, I won’t talk to my friends on the phone, but I’ll listen to any two strangers talk for two-and-a-half hours without a question. So, yeah, so I’m just of the mind that in the attention economy, I’m not too proud to try to help myself.

You can read more excerpts from this interview with Neal Brennan over on Decider.

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