Stand-Ups Whose Podcast Is Funnier

[DoesNotFollow]

Re: Doug Benson, I've never seen a worse podcast than the few episodes I saw of Getting Doug With High, and that was entirely because of his abysmal hosting skills.  So it surprises me to hear that he's held in high regard by some here.  What would you recommend to change my mind?

Fat bong rips.

[Carpool Dragon]

Nobody has a bigger gulf between the quality of their off the cuff material and their stand up than Jim Norton. Even if you loathed O&A he had some genuinely hilarious lines and some of those shows with Patrice/Louis/Burr/Bob Kelly are gold. His stand up specials are absolute dogshit, like a (bad) actor doing an impression of a comedian. He has zero stage presence and can't deliver his mediocre jokes well. It's amazing to me that he's been doing this for 25 years with little to no improvement.

It would be harder to find the opposite. I gave up on Bill Burr's podcast somewhere around deflate-gate, still love his comedy. Stanhope's podcast has gone waaaay downhill over the last few months but I saw him live a while ago and it was great.

[Sin Agog]

Nobody has a bigger gulf between the quality of their off the cuff material and their stand up than Jim Norton. Even if you loathed O&A he had some genuinely hilarious lines and some of those shows with Patrice/Louis/Burr/Bob Kelly are gold. His stand up specials are absolute dogshit, like a (bad) actor doing an impression of a comedian. He has zero stage presence and can't deliver his mediocre jokes well. It's amazing to me that he's been doing this for 25 years with little to no improvement.

It would be harder to find the opposite. I gave up on Bill Burr's podcast somewhere around deflate-gate, still love his comedy. Stanhope's podcast has gone waaaay downhill over the last few months but I saw him live a while ago and it was great.

I find Jim Norton kinda naff in any context.  Patrice O'Neal, if he'd survived a little longer into the podcast boom, would have qualified for this thread, however.  His stand-up's pretty good, but he was clearly another comedian looking for his medium, and belly-laughing and putting pseuds on the spot in his own podcast would have been amazing.  As it is, we have to endure the presence of a nervous Italian racist gun-nut and a shouty blonde dude in order to hear his best material.

[up_the_hampipe]

Re: Doug Benson, I've never seen a worse podcast than the few episodes I saw of Getting Doug With High, and that was entirely because of his abysmal hosting skills.  So it surprises me to hear that he's held in high regard by some here.  What would you recommend to change my mind?

Getting Doug With High was atrocious (although some of the live shows are great), but he's a bit better on his other podcasts. He's made me laugh a few times, but the success of his shows have always been due to the guests he gets. Certainly works better in a live environment. If you look at some of the line-ups from his older Doug Loves Movies and Benson Interruption shows, they're just insane.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I find Jim Norton kinda naff in any context.  Patrice O'Neal, if he'd survived a little longer into the podcast boom, would have qualified for this thread, however.  His stand-up's pretty good, but he was clearly another comedian looking for his medium, and belly-laughing and putting pseuds on the spot in his own podcast would have been amazing.  As it is, we have to endure the presence of a nervous Italian racist gun-nut and a shouty blonde dude in order to hear his best material.

Patrice O'Neal was terrible too. The only thing he had going for him in that format was a very infectious laugh.

[up_the_hampipe]

I find Jim Norton kinda naff in any context.  Patrice O'Neal, if he'd survived a little longer into the podcast boom, would have qualified for this thread, however.  His stand-up's pretty good, but he was clearly another comedian looking for his medium, and belly-laughing and putting pseuds on the spot in his own podcast would have been amazing.  As it is, we have to endure the presence of a nervous Italian racist gun-nut and a shouty blonde dude in order to hear his best material.

Elephant In The Room is funnier than any of his radio appearances.

[Dusty Substance]

Todd Glass.

His podcast is great, his appearances on other podcasts are greater (check out Stain'd Glass on U Talkin' U2 2 Me and, especially, on Norm MacDonald) but his stand up shows on Netflix are pretty forgettable. 

[up_the_hampipe]

Todd Glass.

His podcast is great, his appearances on other podcasts are greater (check out Stain'd Glass on U Talkin' U2 2 Me and, especially, on Norm MacDonald) but his stand up shows on Netflix are pretty forgettable.

Yeah, he's one of those acts that seems hard to capture for a special or tightly edited TV appearance. I've heard several comics say that he can be achingly funny to watch live. His podcast captures his style quite well. This three-part compilation at M-Bar might be the closest you'll find to seeing him in his element as a stand-up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mk3l4v7lEA

[Poison To The Mind]

Re: Doug Benson, I've never seen a worse podcast than the few episodes I saw of Getting Doug With High, and that was entirely because of his abysmal hosting skills.  So it surprises me to hear that he's held in high regard by some here.  What would you recommend to change my mind?

Yeah, Getting Doug With High is both dire and a shambles ime. If you have any interest in movie trivia or comedians pissfarting about, though, do check out lineups in seasons 3 -5 (circa 2009-2012) for people you're reliably amused by. The show is looser these days, and tends more to lifelong opening acts than the stars / upcoming stars he got most weeks in those days (partly because he mostly tapes on the road now, rather than every week in LA). Back then people like PFT and S'got Answersman would also get amusingly, genuinely competitive about the main games, leading to PFT weaning himself off that aggression by coming on as characters, culminating in multiple episodes where he was all three guests, competing as himself against, eg, Cake Boss and Ice-T.

Doug's own funniness is still only shown in asides, but that's the best case for uncovering it for you. Then again, nbd if you can't be bothered! You're definitely not missing out on a high-level comedian whose brilliance is too strong for you to yet comprehend or anything, just a silly game show with funny contests on which funny people are funny / get mad at each other.

[Bad Ambassador]

Todd Glass sounds like a Chris Morris character name.

[Famous Mortimer]

I've never been that bothered with Pappy's but Matthew Crosby is very funny on his Radio X podcast with Ed Gamble.

Just listened to this based on your recommendation, and it's really good. I like "Flatshare Slamdown" but sometimes it goes beyond shambolic to a "we're not actually that funny" sort of feeling - Crosby is great in this format though.

[Sin Agog]

Just listened to this based on your recommendation, and it's really good. I like "Flatshare Slamdown" but sometimes it goes beyond shambolic to a "we're not actually that funny" sort of feeling - Crosby is great in this format though.

That Radio X pod makes me a little melancholic sometimes, as Ed Gamble sometimes reheats old Peacock & Gamble bits (Catfish facts is exactly like a Fubar thing he did, though I forget what now...which is the point, banality milked for comedy on a s'posedly edgy station).  He also occasionally stumbled into anecdotes about things he did with Ian Boldsworth/Ray Peacock, like interviewing Les Dennis, and (probably rightly) didn't give his ol' pal a name-check.  Good show with Crosby, though, and I'm glad every single presenter I've heard on Radio X is suitably disdainful of them shoving the same bands down our throats, like Heart FM except with even less variety.  Really happy that both Gamble and Crosby and Morgan and Brand independently came up with a recurring Nanecdotes feature.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Russell Brand, by a very wide margin.

Brand must be the ultimate example of this. His stand-up is incredibly weak, but stick him behind a microphone in a radio studio and he suddenly becomes an effortlessly hilarious, quick-witted master of improv.

This isn't an original observation, I know, but I think the reason for the vast gulf in quality between his scripted stand-up and his off-the-cuff radio/podcast output is that his rampant narcissism only becomes tolerable when he has Matt Morgan there to puncture it. Brand is self-aware and only too happy to mock his own foibles and pretensions, but that never comes across when he's wanging on about himself on stage. Also, he's just not very good at stand-up. Winging it in a radio studio is his forte.

[Schnapple]

I'm pretty sure they know true mainstream success would elude all three of them due to the content of Cum Town.

Adam has mentioned that sometimes they get hit up by directors and casting agents who want them to play small or cameo roles in films, which they always turn down. But this is true, I think hundreds of hours of Cum Town have probably ruined their chances of working on anything that isn't independently created or self-funded, although, apparently Nick had been working on a project produced by Anthony Bourdain before he killed himself (presumably not for Nick-related reasons)

Re: Maron. As a reverse, he has 100% improved as a stand-up (and person) since the beginning of WTF, which I now feel falls second-fiddle and is typically phoned-in, unless a guest really engages him.

I don't find Katherine Ryan's stand-up anything too special, but she is typically dead funny on any podcast she guests on.

[Carpool Dragon]

Adam has mentioned that sometimes they get hit up by directors and casting agents who want them to play small or cameo roles in films, which they always turn down. But this is true, I think hundreds of hours of Cum Town have probably ruined their chances of working on anything that isn't independently created or self-funded, although, apparently Nick had been working on a project produced by Anthony Bourdain before he killed himself (presumably not for Nick-related reasons)

Well there was the "IBM commercial incident"...