Last Things First: Caitlin Peluffo

Caitlin Peluffo is a New York City-based comedian who played soccer in college and explored a degree and career in the art world before diving into stand-up comedy. A decade later, Peluffo has performed on three different late-night shows on CBS — The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Late Late Show with James Corden, and most recently After Midnight with Taylor Tomlinson. She grew up outside of San Francisco, and went home to record her debut album, “Dirty Bird,” at the San Francisco Punch Line. On the eve of its release, Peluffo met up with me over Zoom to talk about what it was like taping her album in front of her parents and extended family, how she found a different path to success in comedy — a joke from her very first time onstage ended up in her act on Colbert — how her TV appearances have differed from each other, and what it’s like to be a “dirty bird” in comedy these days. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

There’s a track on “Dirty Bird,” called “This Took a Turn,” which comes near the end of the album, where an audience member inadvertently becomes part of the show. Peluffo talks about what she thought in the moment and when she realized it needed to be on the album.

Well, I initially wanted to take it out.

Peluffo said a woman “just stood up and started walking to the stage” during the “check spot,” which is when the waitstaff drops the checks so customers are more talkative and paying less attention generally.

But I remember her walking up and I just being like, oh, this is, I don’t know what’s happening, but she seems a little off. She was hammered. She was just very drunk and excited. I just kind of dealt with it. Like, she wasn’t being mean. She was just being excited. I was like, OK, you’ve got to sit down, girl. That’s crazy. I don’t even remember what I sawid, but it was playful. And then my producer, Jessica, she was like, you have to keep that in. I was like, I do? And she said yes, because you’re an off-the-cuff-person. This is shit that happens. And you know, we rarely get to capture it on an album recording. So I was like, ‘All right, leave it in. That’s fine.’ And I listened to it and it is very in the moment, which is what I am. I can’t be anything but present because my ADD won’t let me. So I was just like, yeah, this is pretty much how it is. So keep it in. It’s a good representation of who I am as a comic. So let ‘er ride!

That off-the-cuff style, it turns out, goes back to Peluffo’s first comedy class.

I didn’t know that you had to physically write jokes. I thought you just did the class and they taught you how to write jokes. And so that first class, everybody went up and did five minutes of material. And I didn’t have any. I had nothing. So I just went up. and talked. I just went up and rift and I rift about my thighs and I believe a version of that joke or joke that I said is on Colbert.

Of course, taping The Late Show with Stephen Colbert without Colbert was a much different experience for Peluffo than, say, filming After Midnight last week with host Taylor Tomlinson, where we learned they share something quite intimate. Roll the clip!