Steve Sweeney is a comedian and actor from Boston's Charlestown neighborhood who has performed on big stages and bigger screens for more than four decades. His newest project is Townie, a documentary-style stand-up film making its North American premiere at the New York Comedy Film Festival in February 2026. It's executive-produced by Peter Farrelly, one of the Farrelly Brothers who previously have employed Sweeney in memorable supporting roles in films such as Me, Myself and Irene and There's Something About Mary, where he played a cop confronting Ben Stiller's zipper scene. Sweeney, who has his own intimate comedy club in Quincy, shared stories with me reminiscing about his performance on the HBO Young Comedians Special hosted by John Candy, attending USC with Judd Apatow, what he learned working with and befriending legends such as George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield, how Colin Quinn pushed him to become more vulnerable onstage for Townie. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

A dozen years removed from his debut stand-up special, Beta Male on Comedy Central, Kumail Nanjiani's fans can finally see him in a new hour, Night Thoughts, which premiered in December 2025 Hulu and Disney+. In between, he and his wife Emily V. Gordon received an Academy Award nomination for their screenplay for The Big Sick (and won Best First Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards). On his own, Nanjiani has earned two Emmy nominations (first for guest acting in The Twilight Zone, the second for his lead performance in a limited series for Hulu's Welcome to Chippendales). He also shared in a Screen Actors Guild Award win with the cast of Hulu's Only Murders in the Building. Night Thoughts finds Nanjiani in contention for his first Golden Globe, for Best Performance in Stand-Up Comedy on Television. His performance catches fans up on how fame has and hasn't changed him, most strikingly by how the public reacted to his body transformation for Eternals, and then for their reaction to the Marvel movie itself. I caught up with Nanjiani over Zoom to see whether all of that therapy has translated into better mental and emotional health for him in receiving both validation and criticism from strangers online, and how he's slowly become more comfortable putting himself out there in bigger and bigger pop-culture franchises. In 2026, you're already guaranteed to see him in the second season of Amazon Prime Video's Fallout, as well as the upcoming season 21 of Taskmaster. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

It's the end of 2025, which means it's time once more for my annual December to remember the year in comedy with my friend and colleague in comedy criticism, Jason Zinoman from The New York Times. Which funny people met the moment to become Comedy's Most Valuable Performer for 2025? Late-night TV certainly faced a political crisis on top of its existing existential crisis this past year, with CBS jettisoning both of its late-night franchises, and ABC threatening to follow suit with Jimmy Kimmel. We also saw major push back within and outside of comedy regarding the inaugural Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia; the end of an era with Marc Maron closing the loop on his WTF podcast coinciding with the WTF-ness of video podcasting reigning supreme; the eccentric choices from the likes of Nathan Fielder and Tim Robinson; and a year in stand-up specials that smiled upon relative newcomers big (Hulu) and small (Dropout), with an uncertain future for HBO. As always, there's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

Mike Bridenstine appeared on this podcast three years ago in Episode 417. Since then, he has written and published his second book about comedy, "Kansas City Comedy: The Unbelievable True Story of Stanford & Sons, Its Outlaw Owners and the Most Infamous Stand-Up Sets of All Time." Brido also has begun working behind the scenes as general manager of a cherished Los Angeles comedy venue, the Lyric Hyperion in LA's Silver Lake neighborhood, where he and his team also have launched their own production arm, Spesh!, filming and distributing comedy specials. Brido directed the first Spesh! special, Emily Browning: Temporary, Beautiful, which came out in September. On the weekend before Thanksgiving, I sat in on the Lyric's taping of a new hour from Ahmed Bharoocha, then met up with Brido the following day in Lyric's green room to talk about where his own path in comedy has taken him, and what he has learned about talking with other comedians and working with them more closely. Brido — who appeared this year on an episode of High Potential — he has come a long way from Iowa and iCarly. Which means there's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland met in high school in Maryland and have been making magical two-handed theater shows ever since. Now based in New York City, they have taken three shows to the Edinburgh Fringe since 2022, winning The Scotsman's Fringe First Awards for writing for each of them: And Then The Rodeo Burned Down; What if They Ate the Baby?; and A Letter To Lyndon B. Johnson or God, Whoever Reads This First. At the end of 2025, they also began debuting their latest work-in-progress, The Doctor Was His Mother, which ditches their usual narrative arcs and sociopolitical commentary for some simply silly and laugh-out-loud physical comedy. Their work always blends absurdist clown work, modern dance and satire in a way that separates them from most of their peers working onstage today. In December 2025, they're enjoying an encore run of What If They Ate The Baby? at the SoHo Playhouse in Manhattan, and joined me over Zoom from their dressing room backstage to talk about their writing process, how they had to gamble on themselves in Edinburgh before gaining any real exposure in the States, and what sets them apart from the rest of the clowns currently influencing the comedy scene in the mid-2020s. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

Jono Zalay began his standup career in Boston while simultaneously earning his Doctorate in Neuroscience, where his research work included giving cocaine to rats. Since dropping his science hobby to pursue comedy full-time, Jono has done standup for The Late Late Show on CBS, Netflix is a Joke, and LMAOF on OnlyFansTV. He also has worked behind the scenes as a story producer or consulting producer on Peacock's Stormy Daniels series, CNN's The United States of Scandal, and Amazon Prime Video's This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy. Jono sat down with me over Zoom to talk about all of that, how he has pranked the DMV, and what made his latest comedy album so special. On Beat Life to Death, he jokes about reaching his midlife years and tells stories about his dad — which makes this extra special, since he recorded this, his third album, just days before his father had quintuple bypass surgery. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

Jamie Linn Watson is an NYC-based actor and comedian. You may have seen her as Joanna Roscoe in season 5 of What We Do in the Shadows, a judgy church girl in Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain, or as the Sprintern in many national commercials for the company formerly known as Sprint. Watson performs with the Upright Citizens Brigade on one of their house character teams, with former SNL cast member Chloe Troast on the improv team A Crazy Amazing Friendship, with the sketch group LISA, and goes on tour with the Story Pirates. She's also the star of a new movie about the early days of online content creators — SKIT debuts November 14, 2025, on Tubi. Watson sat down with me over Zoom to talk about her own experience with YouTube and social media over the years, what she has learned from watching her peers succeed, and what kind of characters she loves to portray the most. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!

Saaniya Abbas grew up in New Delhi, attended an all-girls Catholic school in the Himalayas, and only discovered herself once she found herself divorced in Dubai and starting a new life as a stand-up comedian. She amassed a half-million followers on Instagram hosting live videos in the pandemic, and as a comedian has toured the UK and India, and took her first one-woman-show, Hellarious, to the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe. Abbas and her furry cat ears have come to America in November 2025 for the New York Comedy Festival, but first she took some time out over Zoom to tell me about what she has learned from cosplay, social media and experiencing different environments around the world. There's a lot to get to, so let's get to it!