Nazi Jokes & Stand-Up Taboos with Tom Ballard

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Josh Szeps

Society & Culture, Education, Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Self-improvement

4.5 • 905 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Think of Tom Ballard as a young John Oliver, who hosted Australia's national nightly satirical news television show ,"Tonightly with Tom Ballard". He returns to the show to discuss his getting cancelled for doing a Nazi salute, punching down, anti-semitism, Gaza & Zionism, cancel culture and offensive comedy. This episode is part of the Uncomfortable Conversations Comedy Festival extravaganza. Josh headed to Melbourne for a ten-hour Substack Live marathon with five of the greatest comedians. You'll get a new episode every 48 hours for the first two weeks of the biggest comedy festival in the world. Ballard's stand-up show is ‘Be Funny Challenge (Impossible)’ and his play about stand-up and cancel culture is ‘JKS: a Comedy(?)’ Tickets at comedyfestival.com.au

Transcript

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0:00.0	Gay humans, the world's biggest comedy festival is currently underway, so I popped down to
0:09.0	Melbourne for a 10-hour, live-streamed substack marathon with five of the greatest comedians
0:16.7	in today's first thrilling installment of the Unpfortable Convers Conversations comedy extravaganza, Tom Ballard.
0:23.6	He is like a young Joel Oliver.
0:26.6	He hosted Australia's National Nightly Caterical News Show to Mikely with Tom Ballard.
0:32.8	He and I discuss getting cancelled for doing a Nazi salute on stage, punching down, anti-Semitism, Gaza, Zionism, cancelled culture and offensive comedy.
0:43.7	Here he is, the one, the only, Tom Ballard.
0:49.7	Tomothy Ballard, welcome back to the show.
0:53.1	Lovely to have you again, we're in Melbourne. The Melbourne Comedy Festival. You come straight from a rehearsal. You're going straight to a show. I just love laughter, Josh. You do love laughter. Yes. Don't we all in these trying times? I'd say laughter is more important now than ever. Laughter, I would say laughter is even the best medicine.
1:11.0	Oh, wow.
1:11.7	The best medicine of all.
1:15.1	Apart from medicine, actual medicine, which is also better than laughter, usually depending
1:21.2	on the symptoms, I find, you know, like if you had, for example, some kind of weeping,
1:27.3	infected sore, then antibiotics would be a superior medicine than laughter.
1:33.8	Kemos is pretty good, too.
1:35.0	Yeah, well, not for a weeping sore.
1:37.4	Sure.
1:37.9	But if you had cancer, it would be.
1:40.3	So are you rehearsing the show?
1:41.8	Fact checked already.
1:42.9	Exposed.
1:43.7	Don't fuck with me on this show, Tom.
	...

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