Hello everyone. I'm Diane Grissell.
I'm also known as Silver Disbedience.
If you follow my blog, this is the Silver Disbedience
Perception Dynamics podcast where we interview really cool
people and let me tell you, you're not going to be
disappointed. Today, my guest is Jack Vaughn,
who's in charge of comedy programming at SiriusXM.
He is an icon in the comedy space who's been behind the
scenes. And you might not know who he
is, but you certainly know a lot of the talent he worked, has
worked with. And we're going to be talking
about comedy as a cultural force and as a societal temperature
taker and also pressure release valve.
So thank you, Jack, for joining me.
Thanks. For having me, Diane, great to
see you. OK, comedy.
I love comedy, and apparently you do too.
Who doesn't? Well.
You know, we could say some people are losing their sense of
humor, but we won't go there yet.
Fair enough, fair enough. How'd you come to comedy?
So I was running independent music labels for about a decade
prior to to getting in the business.
And I had always been a fan of comedy.
And the record label I was running was the independent
label of the modern swing movement.
If you remember that being hit for about 13 minutes in the mid
to late 90s. And we were doing great.
But one day in, I think it's mid 99, the whole world realized
they were tired of swing and the phone stopped ringing and we
couldn't sell another album. And so I had always been a big
fan of comedy, had comedy records growing up.
And I saw this guy, Mitch Hedberg on, I think it was
Premium Blend. And he had a joke where he goes.
I got a roll of lifesavers in my pocket and I can't wait.
Sorry, I messed that up. I, I, I, I, I'm doing a
disservice to Mitch and I can't do that.
So he goes, I can't wait to get off stage because I got a roll
of Lifesavers in my pocket and the next one is Pineapple.
And it was like that what he had self released an album and I
found it online and I got it and I memorized it.
And I couldn't believe that there was something that good
that wasn't distributed, that wasn't out there.
People didn't know about it. So I basically approached Comedy
Central with the idea of starting a record label.
Now you got to remember that at that time, comedy records
weren't really a thing. No one was putting them out.
Yeah, I can't think of any. Yeah.
And it was a real challenge because we had to convince
stores to put them in, We had to convince the artists to do them.
And so basically approached Comedy Central with the idea of
starting this label and they were kind of hesitant at 1st
and. What year would this have been
about? This is 2001 and I look young
now, but imagine me like 25 years younger.
I should have been having a propeller hat and holding a
balloon. And so I, I didn't this, this
face doesn't carry much gravitas, but the, I, I sort of
pitched them and pitched them for nine months.
There was a, a woman there who was head of business development
named Holly Lim. And she, she got it.
And I don't, I don't think she necessarily believed in me, but
I believe in the concept. And so they said after nine
months, like we'll give you a little money to try this.
Come, come to New York. And so I came back to New York
and started it. And while it was challenging
because I had to do everything I did the the marketing and the
A&R and the artwork and the like and the, you know, accounting
and all this stuff, it was really great because no one was
doing comedy records for the most.
And was Mitch the first one you tested this with?
He was one of them. So the first people we signed
were Bobcat Goldthwait, Dave Attell, Jim Breuer, Dame Cook,
Mitch and there there were a handful.
And the Comedy Central had ATV show at the time called Crank
Yankers. It was a prank call show, or I
think they they like they insist on calling it a crank call show
with puppets reenacted by puppets.
And no one was planning to put out the audio.
So like, oh, people like prank call records.
So I put out the prank call record and it did great.
And that was a really auspicious start because it gave us a
little momentum as we were going into this.
And so had to go out to all of the record stores and say like
hey, you should have these, right?
Because at the time people didn't know names of comedians.
They just know like oh, Mitch Hedberg is that long haired guy
with the aviator glasses does the 1 liners.
So we had to spend a ton of money buying, pricing and
positioning at stores to get people's faces out.
These comedians faces out because if they had to go to the
cobweb basement of the store to find the comedy section, even if
there was a comedy section, it's just impossible to find.
But if you can bring it up to the front of the store, people
go like, oh, I recognize that guy from Letterman, I'm going to
buy this. And we had to price them very
aggressively, just like real cheap.
But it started to build and it started to build and build and
build. And within nine months, I think
the label was profitable. And within three years we were
top five independent label. And one of the best parts about
it is that we got to advertise the records on TV because Comedy
Central had remnant ad space that they couldn't sell.
So we got millions of dollars in free advertising by putting
these on on television. And the comedians had stand up
specials on Central so we can put lower thirds in saying like,
oh, get so and so's CD in stores now.
And it was just fantastic because it was contextualized.
If you're watching that special, chances are you're going to want
to buy the album. And so yeah, it was great.
And got to do the, you know, the first records from people like
Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Anthony Jessenlik, Daniel Tosh,
Aziz Ansari, John Mulaney, the the list goes on and on.
And it was, it was a really fun time to be there because it was,
it was really kind of Wild West. And there was all this talent
who is so good and just kind of bubbling under the surface
because we were coming off the observational comedy bust of the
late 90s. And there was this kind of.
That's an interesting phrase. The observational comedy bust.
Yeah. It's sort of like the talking
about how bad airline food is the kind of what we now consider
hacky premises. And what I wanted to do with the
label at that point was kind of recontextualize it because you
had this notion of comedians in T-shirts and Blazers with the
sleeves rolled up on a stool in front of a brick wall.
And I really wanted these to look like punk rock records
because, you know, the people that were coming up were really
doing interesting, edgy stuff. And a lot of the the sort of
mindset on comedy didn't reflect that.
And so it was edgy and interesting and dangerous and
super funny and original. And I want to convey that in in
the packaging and kind of help change the conversation a little
bit around what comedy was. And, and yeah, and it it, you
know, the the comedy scene has just exploded because there was
so much great talent kind of going unnoticed in the
underground. The people who knew comedy knew
it and got it. But in terms of mainstream
acknowledgement, there just wasn't it.
Wasn't there? You know, it's so funny when you
talk about how comedy, you know, exploded and the evolution of
it. You know, if you go back and you
think of, you know, the Rodney Dangerfield's or the Jackie
Mason's and Alan King where they were playing at, you know, these
huge resorts, you know, or Las Vegas, you know, or maybe the
Copacabana in New York. And then it advanced to, to, you
know, the nightclub scene and, you know, comedians on the road
night after night. I mean, when when I work with
Jay Leno, trying to book him on the college circuit, he was on
the road 350 nights. You were booking Jay Leno on the
college? Circuit I was.
Tell me about that. No, no, no where.
No, no. I want to hear that.
It was just, it was in 1985, and Jerry Seinfeld was on the road
300 days a year. Bill Maher.
Yeah, was another one, Adam Sandler.
I mean, it was a great roster and they were on the road 300,
you know, every, every weekend, you know when you'd get the 45
minute. I remember sitting in the room
when Jay Leno's contract was negotiated for $1,000,000 for
his first time, and I don't think he had.
I think he was Johnny Carson's relief person on Monday nights
when Johnny Carson wanted a night off.
So you see that kind of evolution.
And then now you've got Jim Daffy again, who you mentioned,
who I love. You know what huge arenas, you
know, Sebastian Maniscalco selling at Madison Square Garden
multiple nights in a row, Bill Burke.
You know, it's such a wild evolution.
You know, there's then there was this, you know, there's always
been the Saturday Night Live component to it.
But when you talk about the ups and downs of comedy, you know,
there were the times when everyone loved those casts and
said, Oh my God, what's happening with this cast?
Is comedy dead? Is it going to be funny again?
But there was always the glimpses.
Totally. Yeah, Yeah.
What do? You think of all that?
Well, it's interesting because as you look at the history,
there have been waves of it and there's been ebbs and flows and
each time it comes back bigger. When I got into the business in
2001, 2002, let's say, and these numbers are going to be wrong,
but they're not going to be. I mean, I think they're
illustrative of kind of what's happened.
There were maybe 5000 stand ups in the country and there were
300 really good ones and they were pretty easy to identify.
And now say 25 years later, I would say that there are at
least 100,000 comedians in the country and it's really
complicated to figure out who they are.
Again, that number is probably wrong.
You're probably not off I. Mean, yeah, I mean it's.
I'm sure my kids think I think I'm a joker.
Stop. You are, I know you, you are a
joker. But it's it's just the industry
has changed so dramatically because, you know, back in the
day, if you got a 5 minute set on Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson
or even Letterman in the earlier days, your career could be made
because there were three networks, 10s of millions of
people watched it. It was a rocket to stardom
today. And even 20 when I started in
the business 25 years ago. It almost doesn't move the
needle. If you if you have one of those
late night appearances, it's really great to you know, for
your bona fides to say like, oh, these gatekeepers wanted to be
on the show. You should probably trust me to
play your club. But in terms of moving tickets,
moving albums doesn't doesn't have any effect.
And there are so many outlets now for comedians to have to
promote. I feel really almost terrible
for a comedian entering the business now because not only do
you have to be incredibly funny and incredibly original, you
have to do all of this stuff you don't have.
You don't have to just do one thing your comedy.
You have to have a podcast, you have to do social clips, you
have to put out albums. You have to be on the road all
the time. You have to do appearances
everywhere. You have to do all this stuff
right now, do sketches online. It's just so much stuff.
And I run into comics who think like, oh, if I just get this
movie role or I just get this TV appearance, it's going to rock
at me the stardom. And that never happens.
It's all a confluence of just Rd. dogging it, doing the
socials in the pocket, like doing all of this stuff and
being in front of everybody all the time, which also has a down.
I mean, has a major downside in that when do you have time to do
your comedy? And you, I feel like a lot of
the, the, the comics, when I was starting out in the business,
they had done their thing, just worked in clubs and worked out
their acts for years and years and years.
Yeah, right. And they worked on a specific
act for 10 plus years. Yes, and, and, and they could do
that because they were going from club to club.
I mean that was my first exposure like 79 to 85, right.
I always say, I, I often think of them as the comedy golden
years because you'd go to, I grew up on Long Island and you'd
go to East Side Comedy, which was owned by Rick Messina and
Richie Minervini. Richie Minervini started the
whole thing and he had East Side Comedy and the other one in
Nassau County. And you had, and he just would
bring in the best people and you would have, you know, Eddie
Murphy one night and then Bob Nelson do routines.
And you knew they were going to do the same routines most night.
You went there and you started to memorize their routines.
But they would deliver them different every night.
And now I can't imagine the pressure on a comedian because I
just recently watched the Bill Burr special and I thought, OK,
that was pretty good. That was a lot of new content.
I never heard him say any of that before.
That was phenomenal. But I think about the pressure
to come up with an hour and a half show where people are
saying, oh, I've heard him say that before because everyone's
in this. Yeah, exactly.
How do you do it in a vacuum when you have people with
cameras at every one of your shows so hard and you have to
put on social content and you have to do all this.
And this is an art form that takes an artist probably 10
years to get mildly proficient at it, typically.
And that's that's not hyperbole. It takes about 10 years to get
not bad at it. And it's a, it's a muscle and
you have to do it every night and you have to, you know, eat
it over and over and over again. And it's incredibly hard.
But then when you're competing against so many other people,
because again, back in around 2000, there were sea level
comedians on the road making $150,000 a year and, and living
good lifestyles. Like, how do you do that when
the amount of clubs, the amount of venues for it is finite and
you're competing for spots? Yeah, it's just it's it's really
difficult these days. One of the.
There were only two things I looked for at Comedy Central
Records. And this is going to sound like
nonsense and not believable, but it it was the.
It's the honest truth. I looked for someone who was
really, really funny and someone who had a very recognizable
voice. Because think of any comedian
who is your favorite you know immediately.
You know their voice. That's Rodney Dangerfield.
Interesting you. Can't get respect, you know
Lewis Black is going to be furious about stuff, you know?
You know what Maria Bamford is going to be like, You know what
Ron Funches is going to sound like?
You know what David Tell is going to be like, You know
almost immediately. The persona is so identifiable
and it doesn't have to be on the nose like I'm Gallagher and I
smash fruit. It could be very subtle.
But it's true, I can. I never thought about that but I
can think of every comedians voice.
Yeah, they're very, very identifiable.
Their point of view is identifiable, and the more
identifiable the better chance of success.
I mean, just whether you love or hate Andrew Dice Clay, he was a
very specific persona and very easy.
Represented him, yeah. Very easy to latch onto or have
a protest. And Sam Kinison used the club
used to put him on when they wanted, when like they wanted
the audience to leave by midnight.
It saved him to be the last act to go on because he'd go start
screaming and people would start to.
He's not not everyone's brand of tea.
Yeah. Yeah, I totally.
But again, like so identifiable in that and that, you know, the
he he and Judy Tenuta had that kind of like, oh, we're just,
we're we're talking in low voices and that are going crazy.
And so that's very, you know, identifiable.
The problem with that though, in the comedy space is that if
you're too identifiable, you burn out because people get
tired of that voice very quickly.
And then you have to move on to acting, usually to to have
longevity if you're, if you're a comedian.
And this again, I'm, I'm using broad strokes here, but this is
kind of, I feel like true for the most part.
If you're a comedian with a very recognizable voice, you can
rocket to stardom, but the longevity typically is not there
because comedy, I feel like is largely about novelty and the
unexpected. And when you get routinized or
you know someone's voice, a lot of the time you get tired of it,
especially if you're oversaturated with it.
So. It is funny, meaning even in
acting, how you can pick up intonation like, you know, I
could know whether it's, you know, Robert De Niro or Al
Pacino, who we can all say are great actors.
They've done great films, but I pretty much know exactly how
they're going to act in any movie.
You just know it. Yeah, you know exactly.
You know, totally. You wonder, is it acting or are
they just, are they playing? You know, they're just Joe
Pesci, you know? Yeah, when he went into a comedy
role, you know, you know, but. No.
That's exactly. Yeah, that's a very interesting
point. What was the best performance
you saw? I'm jealous that I'm a little
too young to have been going to the clubs in in that period.
What was the best performance? There were so many because I
lived through Caroline's when Louis Ferrando was, well, first
Louie, he was booking Catch Rising Star, then went to book
Caroline's for years. You know, whether it was Colin
Quinn, you know, doing things, Larry Amoros going through all
the newspapers, I just think Joy Behar had a good routine.
Carol Leafer talking about the airline stewardess.
This was hilarious. You know, bye, bye, bye, bye,
bye, bye, You know, you know, or, oh, my gosh, the list goes
on. Chris Rock used to come on stage
with a hoodie all the way, pulled down and walk on stage,
You know well like this and say OK, I know you already have 9-1
in your cell phones and it would break up the crowd with this
nervous laughter. He's so.
Good. Oh my God, he was, he was
unbelievable. Eddie Murphy.
I mean seeing him back in the mid 80s.
So jealous I I wore out so many people.
Two or three copies of Eddie Murphy's first two albums.
They're just. And, you know, now I, I mean,
Bill Maher, the interesting watching his total evolution of
the different ways he's approached comedy, Dennis
Miller, you know, the list goes on and on.
I mean, you know, Adam Sandler moving from, you know, comedy
clubs to, you know, making movies.
They yeah, it's yeah. God, so much good tell.
It's so, you know, I really, I feel like I'm, I truly feel
incredibly fortunate that I lived through a real golden age
in comedy. But I look now like I think
Ricky Gervais. I mean, I can't watch it without
choking. I can't be, you know, he just
buckles me up because. It's.
It's that candor that I love from anyone.
Yeah. Because I always, you know, when
people get nervous in a crowd or, you know, when I first
approached you about doing this show, I'd love to talk about
this part, You know, where some like the legalizing comedy,
which JP Sears was saying, or the censoring of comedy.
We could all say there's a time and place, you know, Jim
Gaffigan, what was at the Al Smith dinner?
I mean, he fuck, he was hilarious.
You know the different ways he mailed people.
It's why we need that pressure valve.
And I think it also comedy makes us think about the things nobody
wants to discuss out loud. But when you hear it, I always
believed if you laughed at it on some level, you agree.
Or you're debating that within you.
Sure. And it could be a joke about
your husband or your wife, you know?
Yeah, No, no, 100%. Well, a lot of people say like,
oh, I get my news from comedy and I'm going don't, don't do
that, really don't do that. But I, I feel like they're
comedy is so valuable in that it, they're so creative.
It provides a different way of seeing things.
And sometimes kind of world events get so ridiculous that it
takes someone to have that perspective or making fun of it
to go like, Oh yeah, that is, that is bananas.
Like, why are we, why are we doing this thing?
So I, I really do feel like it's, it's, it's super valuable
in that respect. And you know, there's so many
flavors of it, right? There's there's so many
different ways to experiences, so many different points of view
that yeah. And especially now, I mean, that
there's so much of it like it's, yeah, it's, it's just fantastic.
You know, and how it triggers funny interpersonal
conversations. Like if if I'm sitting in the
car with my husband and he knows we're pulling up to some place
and I'm still putting my phone in my bag, he's like, what are
you, Missus Maniscalco? You.
Knew we were pulling up here. Yeah, my wife and I have quite
literally dozens of lines from comedians that we use with each
other on a daily basis because they're they're so resonant,
right? And they're and they're so true.
It's Yeah, it's I can't get. Off a plane without thinking of
Carol Leifer going bye bye bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
Yeah. And well, and to that point,
it's interesting too, because then, you know, SNL did that
later on And, and now it's, it's kind of in the, it's in the
zeitgeist. And what's, what's I feel like
not talked about a lot is that comedy does have a shelf life.
Because if you're really good and you come up with this really
good insight, it's going to be copied and repeated to the point
where you squeeze all of the, the novelty out of it.
And I, I go back because I collect all sorts of old comedy
records and a lot of them don't hold up, especially by the
bigger names, because the insights were so good and so
interesting. They got repeated over and over
and over again. So the, the, the novelty got
taken out of it. And an example of that is I
adore Steve Martin, but he was the funniest thing in in the
world. And you know, I saw him do King
Tut at the AT just for laughs. Oh, really?
A few years back and time is meaningless.
This might be 10 years ago and I was watching it and as a huge
Steve Martin fan, I was watching.
I was like, I don't really find the fight because Steve Martin
was in my mind, the first real deconstructivist median.
But now everybody is a deconstructivist comic.
And so how do? You find deconstructivist
comedy. Just sort of taking a meta look
at it. It's a bit hard to describe, but
you know, really taking apart the structure of the joke
punchline, convention of the normal and just and rejiggering
it and reformatting it and adding absurdity to it.
And it was so good and he was so good at it.
Everyone kind of adopted that style.
So what was novel when he was doing it is much less so now.
And I can't listen to those records anymore.
And in the same way, which is too bad because my, my adoration
for him is huge, But it, it's, this is an art form that doesn't
stay still, that doesn't that it just always is moving on.
Because when you get comfortable, when people know
where the joke is going to go or have seen it too many times, it
ceases to be funny. And so you have to come up with
a new perspective, a new way of saying things, a new, yeah,
there's, there's been a movement in the last, I would say 10
years of taking a position that is on the surface indefensible
and then trying to find a way to defend it like Bill Burr is so.
Interesting. And and finding a funny way of
saying it. And that's a.
Really good point. And that's been, that's been
like I've, I've found that some of the funniest comedy because
also by doing that, what a lot of comedians do is they is they
highlight by trying to find a funny way to defend that
position, they highlight why that position is still
indefensible. Exactly why it's exactly yeah.
I don't have a good example of that because I'm not smart
enough. But he nailed that in his show
in the recent, the recent special he's got out.
He's I'm trying to think of an example he did, but I know
exactly what you're talking about.
He's really good at that. And that is such a novel way to
look at, you know, to, to perform comedy and, but at a
certain point that is going to get tired and we'll move on to
something else. Where do you think George Carlin
fit in with that? I don't know, I think he he was
a he was a force unto himself. And it's hard to pin down George
Carlin because his career had such an arc and he sort of he
moved with the times, which I feel like is why his career
lasted as long as it he was so good and updated and reiterated
and you know, and just and changed once things started to
get stale. It was so good.
So I don't, I see him kind of in a league of his own standing
aside from everything because his path was not.
I mean, he did a little Hollywood acting, but he was
just a pureplay. Stand up.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Oh, right, I. Forgot that, it was just
interesting to see him there. Like what?
But but yeah, I, I, yeah, he's just a force.
And I, I don't know how he fits in into all that other than just
being a luminary in the business.
But what? What's your prediction on the
arc of comedy over the next few years?
Because as you said, you've got this disintermediation because
you've got all these channels the, you know, the Internet, you
know, are you an Internet famous person or are you, you know,
does somebody know you from TV? I don't know and I wish, I wish
I could figure that out. It's just the prognostication is
tough. My one concern is that there's
so much of it and they're so it's.
It gets crappy. It gets crappy it.
Really does. There's a lot that's just not
funny. It, it's, it's true.
And what has happened was so Mark Normand was one of the
first people to use YouTube to put to release a comedy special.
And this was five or seven years ago and everyone, all these
comedians would talk about using the Mark Norman model because he
got something like 10 + 1,000,000 views in the first
month or something. It was enormous.
And no one had, really. Excused my ignorance.
Is he a comedian or was he a producer?
Yeah, I've never. Heard he's a New York comedian.
Utterly fantastic checking out Yeah, Mark Normand and So what
comedians did was like, oh, I'm going to drop my it did so well
that the next special was on Netflix and it he you know, he
multiplied his ticket sales as a result of how and YouTube and
everybody's seeing it and YouTube was like, whoa, people
like this. We're going to put these into
the algorithm and really feed them to people because these
this is great content that people like that is fantastic.
A lot of comedians put their specials up.
They got a lot of viewership from it, but what happened was
with everything, it got oversaturated with less than
stellar specials. YouTube pulled back the
algorithm. They want to be a less profane
platform now, so that also added to the pulling back.
Which I think is good. I always appreciated the
comedians that could do a great show without.
You don't need the profanity. Yeah, I think it's less
altruistic and more like we have advertisers.
We don't want to, you know, talk about, you know, certain topics
with with, you know, Coca-Cola being the sponsor.
But so there's so now it's it's a lot harder to break out on
YouTube than it was before. So again, these things, these
things come and go. And because there's so many
comedians by nature, there's there's a lot of less good stand
up because, again, I feel for these comedians because you
can't just develop your career in a vacuum.
You have to be putting out content from the jump or nobody
knows you. You won't get booked.
Yeah, it's it's a lot harder today to do it.
So to answer your question, I have no idea where it's going.
My concern is that there's and actually it's not really a
concern. I think a lot of of the people
who are doing it are going to kind of fall out and we might go
through a bust period because like we were talking about
before, there's always been waves of progressively bigger
comedy cycles and. Which is you might like music,
you know, when you have bands that were the one hit wonder,
you know, and, or a band that put out a great album to follow
that up with the second grade album is tough.
And in comedy, you're talking about a 45 minute set, 100%, you
know, or hour and a half if you're trying to sell out
Madison Square Garden, you know, tough.
It is to follow. That is a really great point
too, because I come from the the kind of the punk rock world.
I had a punk rock record label in the late 80s and early 90s
and prior to Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit, punk rock was
just operating in its own sort of the asthma and the
underground and and there were these bands around the country.
Again, pre Internet. They were just doing their own
thing and their own regional markets and they were touring
and really the only communication was fanzines.
And but the great part about that is they were coming up with
their own unique style and art form, just without any influence
or hopes for success or caring for success.
So the art was really pure and really good.
Then Nirvana broke and a lot of the big bands in the underground
became famous because they were so good and people wanted, you
know, agitated guitar rock. But what happened was all of
these bands from who were who were performing the underground
time got got famous. And then other people came in
like other people who saw that team spirit feel like, Oh my
God, this is great, I want to be part of this.
Yeah. Got into bands and some of them
could, or you had, you know, heavy metal bands in Los
Angeles, you know, stop using Hairspray and stop start wearing
flannel and moving to Seattle and starting and grunge bands.
And so you saw this small scene explode.
And then all through the mid 90s there were a, a preponderance
like there's all these bands getting signed and there were
hundreds and thousands of alternative rock records being
released and they were all fine. They're pretty good.
And it led to an over saturation and then kind of a collapse in,
in sort of the mid 90s, which I feel like gave way to the this,
you know, swing and ska movement that we that we were running for
because people just, it was, it was a reaction to all of that
sort of oversaturation of punk rock.
And I feel like there's a great correlation with comedy because
we're at this point now, you know, you have a lot of these
new comedians who grew up on a lot of these luminaries in the
in the early aughts. And just we're getting this
oversaturation because it's such an appealing genre.
And you know, they're, they're not huge barriers to entry to
it. So I feel like we're kind of in
the oversaturation point and I don't know what that's going to
lead to, whether it leads to sort of a waning of interest in
in the genre or or what. But I mean, the good news is
there's ostensibly more talent than ever in this business, and
I think it's going to lead to some amazing comedy down the
road. What do you think create those
breakout moments for a comedian today?
Hard to say. Hard to say because what I've
seen, and again, this is not, this is not universal, but the
real difference between a really good comic and a great comic is
about 15%. And I've watched comics for
years kind of struggle and they're good.
But then at a certain point usually comes over A234 year
period, they really crystallize their voice and that rockets
them to greatness. So I don't know that there is
one thing that that is is going to make someone big.
I think it's years and years and years of crystallizing the voice
and joke writing and just propelling them to to
superstardom. Yeah.
I don't know if I don't know if you can answer this so you can
say you can move on like a politician.
Go to another question, let me let me try not to.
Be a But I'm just curious, you know, when you're thinking about
Comedy Central programming, what what what are you looking for of
where you're saying, OK, this, this is good or this should go
on at this time of day or that time of day because of all the
different things that go into what you choose for programming.
So I I am not the the programmer at Sirius, I would probably be
terrible at it. We have a great talented team of
people who do the programming but and also people who I don't
do the evaluations. We have a great evaluation team
of people who listen to this. I'm more on the deal making side
I see in my career because I don't.
Trust. So who would you make a deal
with? What would it take to make a
deal with Jack? Well, in any aspect of your
comedy life, what in any venture you're doing, what are you
looking for in that talent? Do you know what it's?
It's going to sound disingenuous to say it's the exact same
thing. You have to be really, really
funny and really, really unique and identifiable.
I I think if anything, that might be the one thing that
stays constant in this business because this business changes
almost completely every 9 to 18 months.
Again, that sounds like hyperbole.
It really. Is why?
Because how do you? Why do you?
Why do you say that? Because you'd think that an
entire industry can't change that completely in that short a
period of time. But there are always new
outlets, new ideas, new buyers of content, you know,
distributors and and broadcasters are going in and
out of business. When I got to Comedy Central, it
was one of the proudest days of my life because Comedy Central
was so pivotal for me in my life.
It was the place you went for comedy and and, but and.
Innovative. Yeah, exactly.
And, and for, for years and, you know, it had been declined for a
minute. And then Netflix has been on the
ascendant and other outlets and just things come and go.
And it, it was just, you know, it, it who knows?
Like the, the platforms change, the way you distribute comedy
changes. Do you put it on YouTube?
Is Spotify going to come in and do video?
Is, is Amazon going to be more in the comedy space?
What's going to happen? Like, we don't know.
But they're always new buyers and there's, there are always
companies that are, that are in decline.
And so you just have to keep your ear to the ground and
figure out, OK, where is this going to go?
Where have the paths been blazed?
Where do we think this is going to go for the future?
And I don't envy anybody that because it's, it's, it's, it's
in such a constant state of flux that like who knows?
You know, at the, when I got into this business in about
2000, 2002, CDs were the number one format, right?
And CDs in hindsight were kind of a nightmare because you had
to manufacture them. You had to warehouse them.
You had to do color Seps and pricing and positioning and
listening stations and make sure that they weren't if something
sold out, you had to have more inventory.
And then it became digital and it was all iTunes and the cost
to shoot or to record an album dropped dramatically.
And then no one was doing TV specials.
And then there became a lot of outlets for TV.
And the cost to shoot a stand up special dropped from like
$150,000 to now you know, you could shoot a special today for
five, ten, $20,000 and they look great and there are a lot more
outlets for it. You can have the world see it on
YouTube and that is as an artist is utterly fantastic.
But the downside is, and there's always a monkey paw downside is
that everybody can do that now, right?
And so how do you differentiate, differentiate yourself among all
of the people who are putting out this this content?
So anyway, I don't know if that answers your question.
I think that was a politician. No, it does.
You answered it well. I have a question for you also.
Then you asked me about my favorite show.
Do you have a favorite show that comes to your mind?
You probably have many, but what would be some that?
So I mean, there are there are so many and it's not really
often the ones that are sort of the big landmark ones in
history. They're just nights that are are
magic. I remember seeing John Mulaney
for the first time and just going what this is so good.
He his voice is so amazing, so unique and so talented.
The night I produced a record with Dave Attell called Skanks
for the Memories, and this was one of the first records we
produced. It's very.
Punk name. It's one of the best comedy
records ever. And we recorded it at the Comedy
Works in Denver on Halloween. And I, I remember flying into
Denver and there was this stuff called freezing fog and just
driving through and it was eerie and crazy.
And at the shows, people had been drinking since about noon
and they were all coming in costume and the mood was just
electric. And Dave was crushing.
Every crowd was just bringing down the house.
I remember one night there were it got so rowdy, two women were
escorted away in handcuffs and it was just out of control.
And I always have a fond retroaction of that.
And there were lots of great Hedberg nights and.
Yeah, but just, I guess for me it's it's seeing a comedian I
wasn't really familiar with and just going wow.
Because it's really easy for, I mean, not maybe not easy, but
just often times you could just tell, you could see a comic and
they have it, they have the, the energy, they have the point of
view, they have the timing, or it just works.
And it's kind of transcendent because humor is everything for
me. It's how I deal with stress, how
I deal with trauma. And it's a lot of people think
it's inappropriate to deal with like, like negative topics in a
humorous way, but I find it's the best way to address things
and I just love it so much. I think it released that nervous
energy. It's like if you saw somebody
fall down a staircase. How many times is somebody
standing there laughing? I think.
Thinking about is objectively hilarious to me and I don't I
mean, it's it's just one of those things because yeah, I
just especially with tragic events, to be able to deal with
it. I mean, not in the moment, but
just with humor is is kind of the only way for me to process
it. Otherwise it would just be too
too sad, too too tough. You know, it's interesting you
mentioned that because if I had to pick you just triggered
because I was sitting here thinking what was my all time
favorite show and I might even get teary when I tell you this,
there was no one there that couldn't have been teary.
In recollection was sometime after September 11th.
Robin Williams played at Carnegie Hall and Roy and I went
with another couple and it was a fantastic show.
But how it wrapped up at the end, I'll never forget it.
How do you wrap it up? Talking about the resiliency of
New York. And it was just one of those
moments where you say This is why I love comedy and it's also
why I loved Robin Williams because he could take everyone
from that laughter and gently give everyone the biggest hug.
I mean, it was a it was that pressure relief, that societal
pressure relief that to me, comedy is that magic medicine.
So valuable, so valuable. Yeah.
And he, he was so great at that taking, taking, you know, arcs
and going from that mania to seriousness and warmth and and
everything. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
I, I, I went to, to one of those those chronicologists.
I remember when I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's. It's such a, it's such a skill
to be able to do that, you know? Yeah.
And to make somebody laugh about things that are, as you said,
you used a word before, I can't remember what it was, the
deconstruction of things that are not funny, they're horrible
in society, they're wrong, right.
But add that sense of humor, make somebody laugh, bring it
around, almost agree with it, you know, drive it so home that
you're almost saying, I can't believe they're saying this, you
know, how could they say this? And then they Zing it and twist
it in that other direction. It's, it's such a yeah, it's
such a unique and incredible skill.
It's like, yeah, I just, I just love it so much as an art form
and I always have. And I'm just thrilled that I get
to be a part of it tangentially because I'm not talented.
I wish I could do it, but just I love, I love being a fan of it
and helping to be able to amplify it.
What do you Since you're on the pulse, you've really picked out
a lot of different comedians over the years.
Since you know, noticed talent, help nurture talent, recorded
talent. Where do you think things could
go next? What are other areas within that
world of entertainment? You know what what?
What goes beyond punk? What goes beyond rock?
What goes beyond comedy? Well, it's, it's funny because
one of the few things I've been pretty successful at my career
is identifying interesting sort of niche areas that are doing
really interesting stuff and helping to to amplify it.
I feel like right now magic as a category is kind of in that
space. New York is a big Ground Zero
for a lot of amazing magic talent.
And there are a lot of similarities in my minds with
comedy in that I feel like we're coming off the the observational
comedy bus equivalent in magic. And there are a lot of really
cool and innovative effects artists doing really cool and
innovative stuff, just kind of mind blowing tricks.
And magic as a genre is just kind of bubbling up into the
under the surface. Like people don't think about
going to a magic show the way they do think about going to the
movies or stand up show or even axe throwing, you know?
But there is a small group of just really, really talented
magicians who are doing innovative new stuff in a in in
new ways. And I really think that magic
has the potential to be the next big category and have shot a
series of seven special or sorry of of eight half hour specials,
multiple magicians. You were a part of those.
And let me just say for the record, I don't know what
cameras to look at. Diane was awesome on the show.
The the best balls here ever and we've also shot 7 full hour
magic specials just on spec and are trying to to find a home for
them because the world needs to see this and you know I'm wrong
about all sorts of stuff. I'm really hoping I'm not wrong
about this because it's just a great form of entertainment that
has not gotten it to do I think in recent years, you know, for.
Since I moved to the city over 35, more than 35 years ago,
about, I started hosting an annual Christmas party, holiday
party, and it did. It's just gotten bigger and
bigger and more fun. And I started to maybe 20 years
ago, I started to have a music magician who would walk through
the party and, you know, intermingle with everyone.
And I am blown away when you have these magicians, first of
all, that can work in the round. Yeah, that can pull lifesavers
out of the air, you know, fly them around like Saturn.
And I'm telling you, there are no strings around that
lifesaver. So how that lifesaver is flying
around the air, that's magic, you know, Or I'm still reeling
over Matthew Furman pulling out my engagement ring from, you
know, those old key chains that used to have the hard metal
clasp? They'd be like 4 across in that.
Fold. Yeah.
And like a folding leather wallet.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're talking, and he
asked for my engagement ring. And I gave it to him nervously,
you know, and it ended up in his back pocket in one of those
class that I remember as a kid, breaking my fingernails.
Everyone would be like, oh, can you get the keys?
Oh, I know. Exactly what you're talking
about. They were impossible to slip on
there. Yeah.
Now how did that happen when we were all standing around?
You can only say magic. Yeah, yeah.
It's it's, you know, or. Someone guessing someone's
maiden name. The Mentalists, The stuff those
guys do. So skillful, so skillful.
And so we have, we have a few magicians on the roster and the
I, I never ask how they do an effect.
I try to figure it out. But the I know the work that
goes into it, we have, we have these these magicians who work
for 6-9 months on an effect and stay in their apartment for 10
hours a day for six to nine months, perfecting 1 trick.
And what one of some of the pushback we're getting from TV
networks who are saying no to our magic specials is that
everyone thinks that magic on TV is just camera tricks.
So magic doesn't work on television, which is.
I don't know, Siegfried and they got their start on watch.
I mean, yes, they were in Las Vegas, but the world was
watching them on TV. Exactly.
It's I didn't question that it was magic.
It's nonsense. And what we, the way we want to
help reframe the conversation is like, no, this is a craft that
people do. And the notion of having it be
camera tricks or AI or special effects is anathema to what this
is, which is a, it's a craft. It's people who are skilled
craftspeople doing this amazing craft.
And we just want to to help amplify that because it's just
you should see some stuff. And you have, Oh my gosh, I
would love it because I'm just blown away by magicians.
Magicians and comedy. So it's an interesting tie in
your making because it's it is, well, to me, magicians, yeah,
I'm sure they practice, but to me, they're magicians.
It's magic. And I can't because I can't
imagine it. Yeah, it's, it's it's
jaw-dropping what they can come up with and the way they figure
out how to solve problems. And yeah, so hopefully this is
something that will get its due in the mainstream on a bigger
scale because there are some shows.
I would watch that. I would love to see that the
whole series. Well please do, I hope there are
1,000,000 more like you. I hope they get on the air.
I mean, I could see that as a Netflix series that people would
tune into or yeah, Paramount Plus.
It's he needs to get onto one of those.
Totally, yeah, it's good stuff. So hopefully that's that's where
that's the next big thing. Very cool.
Well, Jack Long, my gosh, what a pleasure this has been.
And time. Goes too fast.
Yeah. Thanks so much for having me.
This has been so much fun. I appreciate.
It thank you. We got to talk about two of my
favorite topics, comedy for sure, and magic.
So much fun talking about. Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you everybody. I'm Diane Grissell.
This has been the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics
podcast, and my guest has been the amazing, talented, creative
Jack Vaughn, who is somebody you want to watch.
So there will be all kinds of links below this podcast.
You're going to want to pay attention.
You may even want to get in touch.
I don't know if that'll help you or not, but you might.
All kinds of info about him below this podcast.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Jack.
Thanks, Diane. Thanks everyone.
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