John Early’s ‘Now More Than Ever’ + Our Emmy Stand-Up Predictions

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Interviews, Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Tv, Movies, Film

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s been nearly a year since John Early released his first stand-up special, Max’s ‘Now More Than Ever.’ But it’s only now that he’s gotten the chance to talk about the go-for-broke special in-depth, with any chance at promotion waylaid by last summer and fall’s back-to-back strikes. And the comedian, best known for his work on ‘Search Party,’ ‘30 Rock,’ and with collaborator Kate Berlant, is relishing his overdue moment in the spotlight. In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast—Early’s second appearance on the show, following his 2022 visit with Berlant—he opens up about the genesis of his Emmys category-breaking special, including how he sees himself as less in step with his fellow campaigning comics and more in the mold of performers like Bette Midler.

Plus, Matt and Allegra take a look at John Early’s Emmy competition in the Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-recorded) category and share their thoughts on who else deserves some love over the same old contenders.

Follow John Early on Twitter @bejohnce and Instagram @bejohnce

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Last Laugh. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and I'm here with Allegra Frank,
0:10.7	who just finished interviewing a comedian who we are both pretty obsessed with. So, Allegra,
0:16.7	who did you talk to and how did it go? Sounds like breaking news.
0:21.8	I talked to breaking news.
0:24.8	I talked to...
0:25.8	Breaking news.
0:26.9	John Early.
0:29.2	He's great stand-up of search party fame.
0:33.3	He saw stress positions this year.
0:35.3	And we talked about all of those things and his HBO special
0:40.6	or HBO Max nay HBO Max special which he is currently campaigning for the Emmys and that's
0:50.0	that's up for a comedy special so we got to talk talk about it. And it came out last year, but
0:55.6	obviously with the strikes, he wasn't really able to do much promo. So it was a fun conversation.
1:01.5	And I think he was pretty excited to be able to like finally talk about the art and the story
1:06.7	behind the special. So it was cool. Yeah, it's called now more than ever. And that's true.
1:12.7	I hadn't thought about it. It did come out kind of during that time where no one was allowed to
1:16.0	talk about anything. So maybe it didn't get quite as much attention as it might have deserved
1:21.5	because of that. You know, listeners will maybe remember that John was on this podcast back in 2022 with his frequent partner, Kate Burlant, when they were promoting their sketch special for Peacock called Would It Kill You to Laugh? And that ended up being nominated for writing at the Emmys, which I thought was very cool because I felt like that was also probably underseen. But it was cool that it got something there. And yeah, now he's on the
1:50.0	campaign trail for his very unique stand-up special now more than ever, which is sort of
1:55.9	part rock documentary, mockumentary concert. He does a of, performs all these songs in it. And I think
2:03.6	is really like the best stand-up that he's put out. I mean, he hasn't really put out much besides
2:08.0	like short sets on shows and things. So this is really like the first big stand-up thing that he's
	...

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