Mike Birbiglia on Stand-Up, ‘Offensive’ Jokes and SNL

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

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

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike Birbiglia is currently working out his latest one-person show ‘The Old Man and the Pool,’ including a stop at this coming week’s Netflix Is a Joke Fest. But before he went on stage for one of his final performances of ‘The New One’ in Los Angeles, Mike Birbiglia opened up about his unique process putting that show together and broke down his evolution from stand-up to theater—and why he doesn’t care how anyone wants to characterize what he does. We also discussed the state of “offensive” jokes, what he learned about telling stories from ‘This American Life’ host Ira Glass and our mutual, unhealthy obsession with ‘Saturday Night Live.’

Get tickets to see Mike Birbiglia perform live at Netflix Is a Joke Fest

This episode was originally published on November 26th, 2019.

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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 especially if you live in Los Angeles like me, you may have heard about a little comedy festival happening over the next week.
0:17.3	Netflix is a joke fest kicked off last night with Dave Chappelle and Friends at the Hollywood Bowl
0:22.4	and features a ridiculous lineup of the best comedians on the planet, including John Mullaney,
0:29.2	Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and dozens of other huge comics over the next 10 days.
0:35.0	This is the first of a few episodes we will be dedicating to the festival, including
0:38.9	a new conversation with one of my favorite stand-up comedians next week.
0:43.2	But today, we are revisiting my interview with the great Mike Berbiglia.
0:49.0	Mike is performing his latest solo show, The Old Man and the Pool, as part of the festival at the theater
0:55.5	at the Ace Hotel next Wednesday night, May 4th. We taped this episode back in the fall of
1:01.2	2019 backstage before a performance of his previous show, The New One, which is streaming now
1:07.5	on where else, Netflix. In the years since we talked, Mike launched his own
1:12.8	podcast called Working It Out, which has quickly become one of my favorites, mostly because he
1:18.2	gets his comedian friends to try out new jokes on the mic, something I'm always hoping my guest
1:23.3	will do. This was such a fun and fascinating conversation about his writing process, our mutual
1:29.2	obsession with SNL that led him to write his excellent movie Don't Think Twice, and that time he
1:34.5	went on a crime spree with fresh air host Terry Gross. Hopefully I can convince him to come back on
1:40.3	this podcast when his new show is available to stream. But for now, here's me with Mike
1:46.0	Berbiglia. Thanks for having us in your dressing room. Yeah, yeah. Been here for five weeks.
1:52.1	Yeah, how's it feel? You're, uh, you're, you're almost done with your L.A. run. Yeah, four more shows.
1:57.2	I did 39 here, 99 on Broadway. And then and then uh all told probably like close to 500
2:05.4	performances of the show wow and this is it and I think that's why I'm sick of course you know my
2:11.9	body is just like all right we're done yeah and then and then after and then it goes on Netflix on
	...

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