Talking All Things Funny with one of the comedy network’s co-founders
Last Things First: My podcast has never been part of a podcast network. When I launched it almost seven years ago, I’d hoped to join All Things Comedy. For whatever reason, the invite never came in 2015. Indirectly, I heard ATC wasn’t in the market for a comedy-interview podcast primarily because they already had ONE, in LaughSpin, which ironically not only doesn’t exist as a website any longer, but also stopped actively producing new podcast episodes a few months before Last Things First launched. But some things are out of our control; definitely out of my control. I accepted it and moved forward independently, and independent I remain in 2022.
But I finally scored a sit-down over Zoom with one of the two co-founders of ATC, Al Madrigal, just in time to promote his first comic-book series, Primos, and almost in time to talk about his co-starring role in a superhero movie, Morbius. Primos is out now. Sony Pictures delayed Morbius from its planned release date of Jan. 28, 2022 to April 1. The Sony/Marvel production, part of the studio’s Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, actually has had several release dates, pushed each time thanks to the pandemic, from July 10, 2020; July 31, 2020; March 19, 2021; Oct. 8, 2021; Jan. 21, 2022; and up to this spring.
Anyhow. I was excited to talk to Al. And thankfully, he was more than happy to talk lots of All Things Comedy!
You can find the audio through my previous post here:
This is an edited and condensed transcript of our chat!
ME: Al Madrigal, I’m so glad to be able to be speaking to you over Zoom or any way.
AL: I feel like we’ve known each other for a long time. It’s good. Congrats on both of us sticking with it, huh?
Not quitting. That’s the secret to success is not quitting.
It really is.
So you know, of course I was obviously looking forward to speaking to you today and then going to see Morbius in theaters. But, you know, Morbius is delayed because everything is delayed.
Yeah, it’s a sign for me that it’s a good movie. So I’m happy about that. Otherwise, they would have just burned it off and partnered with somebody, put on a streamer but it’s a sign for me that it’s something that they want to stick with and put into theaters and I know from seeing what I’ve seen in ADR, when I’ve gone into dub over lines here and there. It looks amazing because Daniel Espinosa is an incredible director. So I’m happy for people to finally see it and hopefully it’s worth the wait.
Above: A scene from the trailer for Morbius showing Madrigal as a detective.
And from what we’ve seen in the trailer, you are singlehandedly the character responsible for confirming that there is a Spider Man Universe.
That’s right (laughs). I have that one line.
Your one line in the trailer confirms it’s all connected.
I’m just so excited to even be in the trailer or to have the part. You know, as a comedian we start out as stand-up comics, I don’t think you’re really aware of the entertainment business. I certainly wasn’t. And then opportunities present themselves to write and act and do other things, to write comic books and you just have to be willing and ready to open that door. And so stand-up allows you to do a variety of things. And acting it’s one of those things that I really enjoyed doing. So it’s awesome to be in a Sony/Marvel movie. How cool is that? It’s amazing.
You mentioned being a stand-up and your young experience in Hollywood. The delay of the film. It made me think back to your early experiences in Hollywood. You had what you thought were gonna be two big breaks with network sitcoms and both of those, just kind of…
I’ve been on a lot of sitcoms, I think I’ve done probably 11 TV pilots — approaching. Dave Chappelle pilot boy numbers — and then I’ve been on over 100 episodes of network television, just not on the same show, and you know, whatever. It’s fine. You know, it’s all crap that is beyond my control. Again, I would, early on be upset and wonder why me? But you know, to get that opportunity in the first place. It’s incredible. So.
Madrigal’s TV resume includes
The Ortegas, FOX (2003)
Welcome to The Captain, CBS (2008)
Gary Unmarried, CBS (2008-09)
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Comedy Central (2011-16)
Free Agents, NBC/Hulu (2011-12)
About A Boy, NBC (2014-15)
WHIH Newsfront, digital Marvel Studios (2016)
I’m Dying Up Here, Showtime (2017-18)
Broke, CBS (2020)
Physical, Apple TV+ (2021)
I guess I was just curious to know how those experiences — how having to handle those as a young comedian/actor have kind of shaped how you look at the business today.
Above: The main title credits for The Ortegas (2003) on FOX. Which never aired.
Oh, well, after the first show. If people are unfamiliar, I was cast in a nationwide search for Latino comedians, and got to work with Cheech from Cheech and Chong, in a show called The Ortegas. It was this improvised talk show, in my family’s backyard where I was sort of the captain of the ship, and directing Cheech from stage, which is such a surreal experience. And it just sort of went away. It just never aired. It was supposed to air after The Simpsons, and Bernie Mac took our place. And yeah, you think it’s gonna be a big deal, but honestly, after that, I realized how quickly all of this could go away. It was because of my first day in Hollywood, sat with Cheech. We went to lunch at Hugo’s on Santa Monica, and he told me two things. He goes, ‘Be nice to everybody that you meet because you know every busboy is gonna love to tell their Cheech is an asshole story.’ And then he goes, ‘You want mailbox money. Try to own everything you can.’ And that led me to start All Things Comedy. So, you know, owning our work is something I learned on that show, and then also the big life lesson there is shit happens! Because, you know, again, I’m not the network executive. I can’t. I’m not the one. So I put myself in a position where eventually I could, you know, allow the comics to be a little bit more in control of their own work.
Right, we’re actually coming up on the 10-year anniversary of All Things Comedy.
Crazy. Nuts. In terms of the idea, the idea was 2010, The Comedy Store parking lot. And, you know, it takes that long view for you to just get all the contracts in place. So yes, 2012 officially in business.
Well, take me back to that Comedy Store parking lot session. Was that you and Bill (Burr) or was that you and somebody else?
No, no, no, it was me and Bill, just sort of talking about how podcasts were popular. And we each had podcasts, and that we should, we’re just going to get taken advantage of like we have in every other medium. You know, you think about how many people make money off comics, from reps to people taking your creative, showrunners you know, things like that. There’s a lot of people feeding off, you know, the funny and the IP that we create, and what’s going to happen is right now it’s just podcaster to audience. And companies are gonna come in and try to take this away from us and own everything. And sure enough, I mean, our first experience with that as I had that idea, and got put it in touch with somebody that tried to offer us 10% of our own idea. Wee started laughing and it got up to 50% and we’re gonna pay you guys $100,000 a year each. And we said no to that. We hadn’t started anything at that point.
That’s essentially Shark Tank. Isn’t it? Other people hear your idea, and they go, Yeah, I’ll let you have that. And I’ll give you some money, but then it’s mine.
It’s mine. I’ll take 50% of that. Yeah, so we we said no, and it’s rough beginnings because you know, you’re trying to herd all of these comics that are independent contractors who are used to doing all these things on their own and they’re selfish and they want to know… I think a lot of comedians that I’ve talked to you they had this business background prior to getting into stand-up, some of them want the phone to ring and then get gigs and everyone else to do the work for them. And I know that that’s not how it works. I remember getting this phone call from a manager, and he said, ‘Why isn’t this podcast more popular?’ I said, ‘How long has he been doing it?’ They said a year and I go, what would you tell a comedian who called you and said, Why am I not more popular because I’ve been doing it a year? You’ve got to put work in man. Like, there’s a lot of stuff that goes into it. There’s a lot of marketing of yourself, and there’s a lot of shows to do, and you have to get great at it. You’re going to put in the work. It just doesn’t happen because you turned on a microphone. So, again, you know, that was early days of podcasting. Now, it’s even more difficult because there’s 8 million podcasts.
Right? I tried to look at my stats the other day, I found a site that ranked all of the podcasts. I was intrigued to know where mine ranked. And it told me that I was in the top 3%. And at first I was like well, that sounds really good. And then I realized, top 3% out of like 3 million. I did the math. Oh, that’s not really that good, is it?
It’s tricky, man. But again, I think it’s like anything. You do the work, put in the time. Have a vision. Stick with it. Don’t quit. There’s a million opportunities to quit anything. So see it through. And then, bringing this back to the comic book. Starting with the comic book that I wrote. This started from me and the former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, when I first showed up at The Daily Show, complaining about how there was no Latino superheroes, and then us going let’s do something about it. And three years later, you know we have a comic book, and it’s a lot of work with zero money. And that’s what stand-up is.
Right. You have the the new comic series Primos, which comes out February 2022.
In stores Feb. 2, and every month after that, and then Free Comic Book Day, we’re gonna be giving a bunch away and it’s in English and Spanish, and again, I’m thrilled. And it’s surreal that this is actually happening.
Yeah, it’s also another sign of how much the comedy business has changed because I think the first time I heard about a comedian getting involved with a comic book was only like in the last 10 years or so, and now it’s more commonplace that people like you are getting opportunities.
Brian Posehn and Patton (Oswalt). And I think Paul Scheer. Paul Scheer was helpful to me because we were coincidentally in Atlanta at the same time, and I think I mentioned that I had this idea and was starting this and didn’t even know how to start it. And he gave me and emailed me his outlines. So I got to see the format. It’s just again, it’s people helping each other out and you’re sticking with it and a lot of stuff can happen. But yeah, you always think about Posehn, Patton, like Blaine Capatch. Eliott Kalan, the former head writer at The Daily Show, he has a great podcast on MaxFun called The Flop House. And he has a Maniac of New York book that’s out. It’s amazing. So, again, you know, it’s a lot of opportunities to quit.
But getting back to the beginning of All Things Comedy. You talk about the idea that getting comedians to work together is a little bit like herding cats.
Starting a business is, again, people have to trust you. There’s a lot of comics that came on, and there’s a lot of comedians that don’t lend themselves to, that don’t work well with others. And that’s why they’re comedians in the first place. So you have to take that solid group of believers who did stick with us, and then — can you imagine? This is the idea, if everybody worked under the same banner and owned part of the company that distributed their content? It would be a trillion dollar business! You take every single comedian and now go OK, let’s start our own company. And we’re going to be the production company for everything that we all make. Trillion dollar business. But this is always the way it’s been done. You know, selfishly worried that someone’s going to take their idea and steal from them, and you know, not want to do business with us maybe just on principle because it is other comics and they think I’m making money. Me and Bill put everything into that company.
How did you and Bill decide how you guys were going to launch this ship and then also steer it?
We are very lucky to have an amazing support staff. But me and Bill have always been fantastic partners because we’ve stayed true to the vision of this company the entire time. And it’s difficult to get people in. But I mean if you think about our roster, it’s fucking crazy! Not only we have The Dollop, which is a huge podcast, Bill’s podcast, but we have Jeselnik, Nate Bargatze. Go down this huge list of we have 60 podcasts and we’re easily the number-one comedy podcast network in the world at this point, and ranked among podcast networks, in total, like up there with you know, I think above TED Talks and above, you know, WNYC and above a bunch of other major players in this industry. We’re ranked like 10 among all podcast networks, and that happened because we’ve been able to completely agree and get along this entire time and just want what’s best for the organization that ultimately wants to give comedians the best possible deal and be transparent, too. You know, all that talk with the WGA and the major agencies — if you’re familiar with what happened there, and hiding all the actual numbers in the back end. Like we want comedians to see it all and, you know, a lot of other production companies are sort of, you know, hiding the true cost of production. And we just really, again, always with everything that we do, I don’t mean to turn this into an infomercial for All Things Comedy, but we really are together with the same vision and then that helps guide us every single day.
Check out all of the active podcasts under All Things Comedy…
Right and you have Jordy Ellner working with you now.
Jordy Ellner. There’s staff of eight people working there that are fantastic. They do so many things, but Mike Bertolina, who had this background working at BEN, which is Bill Gates’ Branded Entertainment Network, and now he’s our president. We’re making great specials we have Ronny Chieng’s new special coming out, which we shot in New York, which is going to be one of the most gorgeous things you’ll ever see. So again, you know, put all the money into the comics and the production of the company.
Who was there at the beginning? Was Mike there at the beginning, or was it just you and Bill?
Oh, it was just me and Bill. And just like a handful — we’re thankful to the people that came in, but just part-timers making $12 an hour, and all the money was coming out of me and Bill’s pockets. So you know, it was bootstraps, and then we got some funding five years ago? We got our angel funding, so we got $500,000 and we haven’t taken any more money since.
I talked to Bill when the Comedy Central specials were coming out. What was part of the decision in making the leap or pivoting or jumping from being a podcast network to producing and distributing specials?
Oh, that was always the plan. It starts with a Podcast Network. We’re able to distribute and market our own productions, and so you think about all the things that again, true to the name, we always wanted to do everything that comedians do. We want to develop and sell shows. We want to be our own production. We want to be a production company for hire. We want to eventually I mean, big picture, be our own VOD platform. You know, we can be a destination for specials. We want to grow our YouTube page. We want to have a record company. We want to do all the things. We want to do touring, I want to do ticketing. Like, think of all the things that we can hang off of this, all with the same vision in mind. Imagine a completely transparent back-end to ticketing system where you can go around the country and tour venues. You know, I remember having club owners tell me, there’s 100 seats nobody knows about. It’s a shady business out there. There’s a lot of people leeching off comedian. So again, we just want to make sure that we can provide transparency at every single step of somebody’s career. You know, I want it to be educational as well. I’d love to talk to people about the business, and have more time to put on seminars and really usher people into this. We’re doing scholarships. Mike Bertolina calling me right now. But it’s, you know, again, I want to do everything I can to help people along: scholarships, funding, incubator, whatever we can do to help people out.
You just reminded me how much things have changed and how much things haven’t changed since the days of I’m Dying Up Here — another great thing you were a part of, the Showtime reimagining of the 1970s at The Comedy Store.
Not really. I was in that writers room.
I know. I know. But now cut to 2022, and there’s another company, 800 Pound Gorilla, that fashioned itself a little bit in ATC’s image. But they’re currently embroiled with Spotify….what do you think of how they’ve dealt with Spotify and how that’s playing out for the comedy business?
I wish them all the best.
That’s like saying objection. Objection! Sustained.
I’ll talk about All Things Comedy. I’m so focused on ATC. I have a difficult time with social because I don’t even want to take the time. I barely promote my own projects. Really it’s a struggle for me to take the time to do this (interview), because I’ve got writing to do, like I’ve got work to do. And so again, for me to be hyperaware of what others are doing. I know where we are. I know where I am. I know what my goals are. And I’m just like head down, trying to do my work, and let everybody else — we can talk about what the other guys are doing.
Right? I mean, it’s been five years since your last special. Your last special, Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy, was fabulous. One of the best of the decade, I think. And you have a new deal with CBS Studios.
Yes. So I’m writing and developing TV a ton. That’s what my most of my days. So I’m finishing this comic book. We’re trying to, obviously we’re gonna shop that around and try to sell the IP from this comic book. And then, you know, there’s other books I might write that I’m talking about. I have a ton of ideas, and then I’m helping — I’m really focused on getting more Latinas and Latinos on TV, because we’re 20% of the population and only 5% of the characters in film and television. So just writing, I mean, I’ve got three TV shows that are being read by networks right now.
I don’t know if you saw, there was an interview with John Leguizamo the other day where he talked about trying to keep his skin tone lighter, because he felt that that was an issue in terms of getting roles. Was that something that you encountered or felt?
No. I just. Again. I think early on in stand-up I didn’t know what I was doing just like most comics. So you know, I really have a lot of regrets when it came to my early stand-up TV appearances, but whatever, you know, I can’t get any of that back. And I didn’t know who I was as a comic for a while. But I’ve been so focused on my own work and anytime I have like, played comedy cop and was misguided to the point where it’s like, Hey, look at this fucking guy. I always had such a hard time with a cocky hack. Just walking around like they’re god’s gift to comedians and going up there and doing just shit material. I’ve always been in back like, this is popular?! And I let that go a long time ago. So I feel pretty good about just being hyper focused on my stuff. But I mean, John Leguizamo, whatever he’s doing, he’s doing a great job at it because he works a ton and he always has and he’s hilarious. So I’m about to do something with him. I think he created superheroes as well. But again, like amazing actor, and he seemed like he was pretty light-skinned in the first place. So I don’t know what he did.
Well, I only asked because I just read it the other day.
We’re lucky to have them. But I wish there were 20 more of me and 20 more John Leguizamos out there working.
But your response to my question reminds me like it’s no wonder that you and Bill Burr work so well together because every time I talk to Bill, he does not put up with any of my BS — or anytime I ask a question that seems that is like a little bit off the mark. He’s right on it.
Oh, am I doing the same thing?
But it’s because you’re well, you mentioned about like, not being able to put up with like cocky hacks in comedy and it’s like, both of you, you might have different onstage personas. But fundamentally, you’re both very ambitious and very straight forward.
He’s amazing. I’ve never seen anybody — I mean, everybody knows this — But Burr speaks in joke. Like he, his every thought is, and I’m not saying it comes easy for him, or that he doesn’t do a lot of work. Because he absolutely is one of the hardest working guys I’ve ever met. And it shows in everything that he puts out. His ability to do multiple podcasts in a week. I’m just in awe of how he does all this with young kids. He’s got a movie, he’s directing and writing. He’s an incredible dude. But he has the ability in conversation, when you’re on the phone with him, to like speak in perfect bit form. You could exactly what he said put it on stage and just crush with it.
That’s why his podcast is like the backbone of ATC, right?
Without a doubt.
He can just talk without anybody around into the microphone.
I think more comics should do that. And more comics, like a lot of podcasts become guest-dependent and I’d love to see more people attempt to do what Bill does. But again, it’s Bill doing that. It’s very difficult.
I’m very dependent upon you being here, Al.
It’s hard. When you look at your numbers, realistically, like again, I might be lower than you know, you have Bill on, it’s gonna be a huge episode and mine’s not going to get the numbers of Bill’s. That’s what happens when you do an interview show.
But the people listening to our show are the important people. So Al, if I check back in with you in 10 years, what do you hope to be telling me about?
I will be telling you about all the walks the dog that I just got. All the golf I’m playing because if I am working hard in 10 years, something went horribly wrong. I am trying to bounce as quickly as I possibly can. So I’m working on saving enough money. First of all, you’re not going to be talking to me in 10 years, because I’ll have nothing to plug. And if you do talk to me, we’ll be running into each other at a restaurant or something and I should have a huge smile on my face, because if the world hasn’t completely gone to shit, I will be playing golf almost every single day and walking with dogs and without a care in the world.
Well, I look forward to seeing you on the course then.
Yeah, me and you.
Thanks so much. I really appreciate your time.
Thanks, buddy. And hopefully, I’ll see you out there that’ll mean that I got a kid out of the house and I’m back doing a little stand-up again. I feel like I’ve one more special in me, so one more.
One more. Let’s do it.
From The Comic's Comic 
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