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Laughing On The Edge

A Piffany About Milestones, Millstones and Withstanding the Grind

Roy Wood Jr., performing for Don’t Tell Comedy at Edge NYC on Sept. 24, 2025. Photo: Sean L. McCarthy.

Look. I’m as surprised as you are to see me publishing a comedy newsletter in 2025, but here we are.

Between my various freelancing duties for The Daily Beast (where I cover Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and contribute essays from time to time) and for Decider (where I review new comedy specials/documentaries and interview comedians), and my decision to add a day job (GASP) to my schedule a little more than a year ago, I wasn’t sure how much more I had in the tank to offer in blog or newsletter form. If you’re wondering why the pace of my podcast episodes had slowed, that’s why. But the past year since Election Day 2024 has proven just how far comedy and comedians have come (for better and for worse) since I first started writing about them, and reminded us just how important it is for them to be held to account as much as the comedy industry, or any industry, should be.

This time of year always finds me checking myself, too. What am I doing well? What could I be doing better?

And I’m amazed at how long I’ve been at this. Thirty-two years in professional journalism. Twenty-nine years since I got onstage as a professional comedian; 27 since I blogged about the Seattle International Comedy Competition for my newspaper; 24 since I first interviewed Marc Maron; 20 since I landed my first weekly newspaper column in Boston about comedy, and convinced the newspaper to let me complement it with a dedicated section on the website; 18 since I moved to New York City and launched The Comic’s Comic; 10 since I started my podcast, Last Things First; also a decade since I began reviewing specials for Decider; seven years since I took over the comedy listings for The New York Times; and two years since I ditched Substack and migrated my newsletter here on WordPress as From The Comic’s Comic (I also sometimes write about non-comedy things on Piffany, which is now on Buttondown).

And yet, there’s still a role for me to play now. Perhaps now more than ever.

You might not need me to keep tabs on the mediocre-right comedy bullies. We’ve not only got Seth Simons punishing himself by listening/watching it all and transcribing the worst bits in his Humorism newsletter; we’ve also got YouTubers such as American Redact or The Elephant Graveyard racking up hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of views shining a harsh light upon the dim bulbs of stand-up.

Then you’ve got whatever the mainstream press thinks they’re doing with stories like this recap of a recent stand-up show at the Laugh Factory?!? Bless Jamie Masada for still finding ways to lure the press into his club and create publicity. This night with Matt Rife and his buddies making fun of Sydney Sweeney may age about as well as the night Chris D’Elia invited a teenaged Justin Bieber onstage to roast him. Ahem. But still, this would be shockingly bad for my colleagues in entertainment journalism, if only the work in recent years by my colleagues in political, business and tech journalism wasn’t so horrific by comparison.

The temptations of access journalism, the proximity to fame, power and money, is only becoming more blurry with the rise of TikTok influencers and AI slop to go along with the rich and powerful doing their damndest to reinforce their positions through global fascism and/or feudalism. Which isn’t funny at all, sadly. So what should I do now? What can I do now? I can do the best I can with the platform I have.

Which means for right now, right here, I’m going to resume recording podcasts and delivering you the comedy news you need to know, good or bad.

Ranting And Raving Over Riyadh

A month after the conclusion of the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival, which dangled fat checks in front of famous comedians to perform for the Saudi royals and their audiences, the stand-ups have been forced to stand up for their decision amid heaps of criticism they likely hadn’t anticipated. Was it because they’d already seen so many athletes sell out for huge paydays to play golf, soccer, or fight each other in the ring? Perhaps that made some of these comics feel entitled to it. Even those who didn’t even need to add to their millions in the bank!

Not needing the money is beside the point. It’s like wondering why the most famous and popular comedian in the world would ever need to drug and rape dozens of women when dozens more likely would’ve committed adultery with him. Selfish people do selfish things.

Two points I haven’t seen made too much despite all of the commentary of the past couple of months? First, I expect it was so much easier for comedians to say yes to the Saudi money without thinking twice about it considering the offers came from their agents and managers via Bruce Hills, the longtime Just For Laughs chief who left JFL in 2024 after 36 years to set up his own company. Who booked this? Hills.

Bruce Hills escorting Kevin Hart to his gig on Sept. 28, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (TikTok)

Second point: I’ve read and heard plenty of defenses from comedians, some pitched directly to me, and I get the idea of wanting to hope that your presence can spark progress in a nation or place that desperately needs it. Although those same comics would need to accept that the opposite is also true, recognizing that spreading bigotry, misogyny, or all any of the phobias (homo-, trans-, Islamo-) could inspire transgressive behaviors and inspire evil, just as easily. For me, watching comedians such as Bill Burr come back to America and tell us how American Riyadh felt, or hearing other comedians lambast the lack of free speech and rights here, it reminds me of exactly how we all felt when we saw American comedians hosting TV shows for the RT cable network. Speaking your mind comedically or seriously about what’s wrong with the United States might not carry the same weight when you’re being paid and promoted by the Kremlin. Same principles, or lack thereof, apply here. You’ve simply been bought to do the propaganda bidding for the Saudis this time.

Of course, every performer, every employee must decide ultimately where they draw the line when it comes to taking or declining a gig. Who won’t they work with and for, and why?

Weekly NYC Comedy Listings: Where Now?

After seven years of freelancing for The New York Times, my run as the weekly comedy listings curator has come to a close. In its place, the paper of record decided to eliminate entirely the weekly Weekend Arts events listings each Friday, replacing it with a monthly overview broadly reducing each of the performing arts to a simple paragraph. You can see the What To Do In November piece here (gift link).

To say it’s giving short shrift to the city’s live performing arts scene is giving short shrift to just what a travesty this is to any creative person making a living in the biggest city in the country. Just look at how they showcase comedy in November:

Mixed feelings galore. I’m proud of just how many performers I could spotlight over the past 360 weeks, comedians who earned their opportunity to reach millions of potential new fans. I also heard from plenty of friends and colleagues over the years who have been critical, correctly so, about how the newspaper treated or mistreated the more substantial issues of our age. I hoped to do what I could with the space and time that I had.

Now that that’s gone, I’m hoping to find other ways to hype up great live comedy. I’ve created a new page on this site (LIVE Comedy Shows!) that I’ll update weekly to include live shows I recommend around NYC. Once the New York Comedy Festival comes to a close later this month, I’ll try to expand the show listings with descriptions, or perhaps expand beyond NYC? You tell me what you’d like to see here, if you please!

Moving on.

Reviews, In Review

From September and October, reviewed for Decider…

September 2025

October 2025

I also predicted an inconsistent Season 51 of transition for SNL, and I reviewed the Peacock doc on SNL’s James Downey, Downey Wrote That.

Other specials out these past two months from comedians highlighted previously by The Comic’s Comic included (on YouTube, unless otherwise indicated)

Kudos To Competitors

Chris Turner finished runner-up this year on America’s Got Talent! We’re so close to seeing a stand-up win this thing, but only the ventriloquists have sealed the deal, still. He also put out a new special on YouTube with jokes and documentary scenes about becoming an American citizen.

John Novosad won the 2025 Big Sky Comedy Festival competition. Congrats John!

Please enjoy this recent set from Novosad presented and uploaded via Nate Bargatze.

Congrats, too, to Shawn Felipe, winner of the 2025 San Francisco Comedy Competition!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DO257CYDqkd/?hl=en

Felipe recently released a new set this summer via Dry Bar Comedy. Enjoy it!

Documentary’s Orders!

I know this dispatch has gotten so long already and has barely scraped the surface of everything going on in comedy, but let me at least also include shout-outs to three great new movies released in the past month or so, each bringing us fresh perspectives on comedians we have known and loved.

Stiller & Meara: Nothing is Lost (available on Apple TV)

“Where does the act end and the marriage begin?” So says the late great Anne Meara. Thank her husband, the late great Jerry Stiller, for recording so many family conversations to ensure nothing would be lost, and for giving their kids Ben and Amy Stiller so much to sort through as they reassessed their parents lives and careers, how it impacted their childhoods, and how Ben’s own comedy and filmmaking career wound up impacting his own kids.

John Candy: I Like Me (available on Amazon Prime Video)

The weight of expectations is also felt throughout this loving tribute to John Candy by the son of another famous actor, Colin Hanks. Candy exuded so much kindness and charisma onscreen, so it feels even more devastating not just to remember that he was only 43 when he died, but to see and hear how much pain he carried with him (and how much of it was foisted upon him by an unnecessarily cruel entertainment media and show business).

Are We Good? (screenings Nov. 8-9, 2025, at Vidiots in LA)

This documentary pitched by Julie Seabaugh and directed by Steven Feinartz follows Marc Maron out of the pandemic and as he both grieved the loss of his partner, Lynn Shelton, and as he tried to make sense of his life and comedy in the wake of it. It’s great not only if you’re already a fan of Maron; the doc also pays tribute to Shelton, her impact on him, and also reminds us that Maron has been banging the drum against the comedy bullies for quite a few years now. I thank him for his service in that regard, as well as to what he accomplished with his podcast, WTF. Check out Are We Good? if you’re in Los Angeles this weekend, or look for it wherever it may be playing on a big screen or VOD. Follow Are We Good? on Instagram for updates.

*****

Are we good? For now, perhaps. I’ll try to come back next week and regularly thereafter with more dispatches from the comedy world.

If you read this far, then perhaps you’d love to read more! New books out this month!

“Comedy Nerd,” by Judd Apatow

“The Man of Many Fathers,” by Roy Wood, Jr.

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