From The Comic's Comic

August 2021

Comedy doesn’t have a Human Resources department, so leave it to Piffany to dole out honors and/or discipline accordingly. Piffany’s Employee of the Month for August 2021 is Ms. Pat. Congrats Pat!

You know you’re having a great month when you not only star in your own sitcom, but that sitcom gets people talking even though it’s on a streaming platform that not many people even subscribe to, and all of that talk is enough to get Netflix to think, oh yeah, we should give this comedian her own hour special already, and then the streaming platform also quickly orders up a second season of your new sitcom.

That’s the kind of month Ms. Pat has had.

When I sat down with her for my podcast back in the summer of 2016 (Last Things First, Episode #109!), her sparse TV credits include competing on Last Comic Standing and telling one of her crazy real-life stories on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening. Just after we talked then, she scored a put-pilot deal with FOX for a single-cam sitcom about her life with Lee Daniels attached to produce. It took another five years to get that sitcom onscreen, as a multi-cam on BET+, but The Ms. Pat Show was an immediate hit since premiering Aug. 12, 2021.

You can read my review over on Decider. Somehow it’s the only mainstream review?!

And yet.

Despite also shining in season two of Netflix’s stand-up showcase series, The Degenerates, back in 2019, and stealing the scene by chewing out Kaley Cuoco and Joel McHale in The Cabin with Bert Kreischer in 2020, it took until August and the success of her sitcom to get Netflix to announce an hour special for Pat.

Netflix announced it Aug. 31 — Pat will tape her special Sept. 25, 2021, in Atlanta. “I’ve been working my whole life for this, and not only do I get to do my first hour stand-up special with Netflix, but I have Wanda Sykes, Page Hurwitz, and Robert Townsend in my corner to help bring it to life. If you would have told 15-year-old Rabbit she would go from breastfeeding while dealing drugs to this, I never would have dreamed it!”

Then yesterday, BET+ announced its renewal of The Ms. Pat Show! As Daniels said: “It took 5 years for the right network to see what we knew immediately. That The Ms. Pat Show was telling real stories about a real Black family, that it was funny, and hard, and just special. It only took two weeks for BET+’s audience to celebrate what the Ms. Pat team put on that screen every episode. We are thrilled at the response from fans, Black Twitter specifically, and look forward to what season 2 will bring.”

Congrats once again, Ms. Pat, on being the most this month!

ALSO RECEIVING VOTES THIS MONTH FOR EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH: Sebastian Maniscalco, for launching his own food series on Discovery+ which was a hit and earned a second season, and heading back out on tour in arenas (even in this pandemic!); Cecily Strong, after releasing her first starring vehicle, the musical comedy Schmigadoon! for Apple TV+ in July, she published her first book in August, “This Will All Be Over Soon: A Memoir,” and is up for multiple Emmy Awards, parlaying it all into a will-she-won’t-she-return-to-SNL tease; Ian Karmel, who came back from his summer vacation a betrothed man and also an official TV sidekick, upgraded and promoted to full-time on-air alongside James Corden on CBS’s The Late Late Show; and Awkwafina, whose Comedy Central series returned for season two this summer with bigger audience numbers, and co-stars in the brand-new Marvel/MCU superhero film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.