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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. You may know my guest comic Josh Johnson from his comedy specials, from his popular YouTube channel in which he posts complete sets of his frequent performances at the Comedy Cellar and other clubs and gets millions of views. and from his work on The Daily Show.
He's now one of the rotating anchors of the show after having been a writer and field correspondent. For several years, he toured with Trevor Noah. Johnson also has been a writer for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
He's really funny, whether it's political humor, cultural issues like his bit, Drake vs. Kendrick, explained for white people, or personal stories like why he's an easy target for muggers, how he's been known to faint, and why he sometimes feels like an alien and thinks he's on the spectrum. His new comedy special is called Symphony. He's added music to this special.
Let's start with a clip from The Daily Show from the most recent time he anchored in April. It's about Trump's ballroom. In addition to Johnson, this includes news clips of Senator Lindsey Graham and Katie Zachariah, who's a former Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.
What could possibly make this thing cost so much? Like, be specific.
Underneath there will be a lot of military stuff.
Military stuff? What military stuff? Name 10 military stuffs. I'll wait. Lindsey Graham sounds like me in fifth grade trying to convince my mom to get me an Xbox.
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Chapter 2: Who is Josh Johnson and what are his comedic influences?
Like, you know, they make educational games, too. Here's what I don't get. The president travels with tons of security everywhere he goes. So what problem are we trying to solve exactly?
The ballroom itself will avoid the dilemma of having to leave the White House grounds. He literally could have left his bedroom, walked out the back of the White House, and been at the ballroom.
Wait, wait, wait. The president needs to walk out of his bedroom into the ballroom. This feels like it's Lindsay's dream. I can see Lindsay like, I must rise from my silk sheets and directly into the cotillion. Oh, it's a mass cotillion where I can be my truest self. This is not what a president is supposed to be focused on. Unless that president is seven years old.
They're writing a list like, I'm going to have a slide that goes right from my bed to the pool. And I want a soup made out of candy so whenever I get hungry, I can just eat my shirt. But still, as good as the White House is, Trump is going to have to leave sometimes.
It really does put President Trump at risk to go around Washington, D.C. like this. The president should not have to leave the White House to go to the Kennedy Center, to go to the Hilton and venture out. People should come to him.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The president should have to leave his house? You don't want the leader of the free world to visit anything. Hold on. Is the president depressed?
Josh Johnson, welcome to Fresh Air. I think you're really funny. How much of the material do you get to write yourself when you're anchoring?
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Chapter 3: What personal stories does Josh Johnson share about his insecurities?
It varies pretty much day to day. There are sometimes you come in with the full sort of arc of the idea that you have for the show. But every day that I'm working there, I work with the writers and the and the EPs to shape everything that you end up seeing and hearing. So I don't really if I'm being honest, especially from my time as a as a writer myself.
Writing there is so communal that I don't really think of it as like how much of the pie is like mine because I think that it's all of ours in a way. Like maybe that sounds like too diplomatic of an answer, but it genuinely is true. It's like when I was just writing before I was behind the desk or anything like that.
You might pitch a joke that someone else has an idea for that sparks another idea. So by the time people see it that night, it's like a mishmash of three people's jokes all to become the funniest thing possible.
Tell me one thing that's different writing for Jimmy Fallon versus writing opening monologues for Trevor Noah. I don't know if you were still writing when Jon Stewart came back to the show.
Yes, I was for a bit and then I got promoted. So I would say the biggest difference is when I was at Fallon, I was on the monologue team. And, you know, you're distilling pieces of the news and everything, but you're trying to get them across in this very specific way. You know, these very sort of short, punchy jokes.
And I think that when it comes to Daily Show and writing there, I was really able to – stretch out the storytelling and stretch out the idea and how you get the idea across and making the
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Chapter 4: How does Josh incorporate music into his comedy special 'Symphony'?
Assessment of what happened a bit more universal or coming up with an analogy that instantly makes this this thing that's happening on the other side of the world easy to understand. And so I think that there was a bit more writing involved that actually got on the show when it comes to Daily Show versus like even if you get like if you get five jokes on on the monologue, that's a huge deal.
That's like that you're killing it. That means that out of this short amount of time, that's the top of the show. They liked a lot of your stuff. And I think that when it comes to Daily Show and writing there, it's like how well are you working in community with the writers around you and how receptive are you both to ideas and also to applying what it is you want to say about a thing quickly.
You do a lot of comedy that's self-deprecating about how you're not muscular, you're not an alpha male. I just started having protein powder. So I thought this part was hilarious that you bought the largest size of protein powder because you wanted to get more muscular, but it was so heavy you needed to work out just to carry it home. So I want to play one of your stories from your first album.
And it's about why you're a target for getting mugged. So let's listen.
Okay. You're looking up at me, and you're like, this guy's been mugged. You be right. I have been mugged. I'm very muggable. I don't know what it is about me, but they just come right at me, okay? I don't know if other dudes in the room do this, but when you see a dude coming towards you that looks threatening, do you think in your head I got to take him?
Because the way I can find my head is astounding. The way I fight in real life, not at all. I am a flailer, so you need to stand back, because you will get slapped, probably by accident. I don't know what I'm doing. So this dude was coming towards me. He looked threatening in my head. I was like, psh, looks like we're gonna have to Jason Bourne this.
I'm going to jump up in the air, do three flips. I don't do three, but we need to. It needs to be done. Bring my knee down his face, crack his skull, punch him in the face until he's incapacitated. That was my plan. His plan was, I'ma punch him in the face and take his wallet. We met up. He had a much better plan than I did. His plan was on fire. Execution, everything.
Some of you guys will know about me. If you punch me hard enough in the face, I pee. So we met up, he punched me in the face, I hit the ground, started peeing right on cue, I don't disappoint, okay? But now he's trying to fit his huge muscular hand into my pocket to take my wallet, but his hand gets stuck around my wallet, it's very full with coupons, I have no money.
But now his hand is stuck, but he can see the peace thing getting bigger on my pants. So now he's like He's lifting me off the ground at this point. I weigh 125. Forget it! And he leaves. So who needs karate, am I right?
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of self-deprecating humor in Johnson's comedy?
I was able to do three open mics the first night because I could just take the bus, go to the next place, take the bus, go to the next place and everything. And I remember the first one went really well. And then the second one went even better. And then the third one was horrible. Like I thought I was on a real streak. And then the third one was just terrible.
Do you think it was the audience's fault? Like they didn't get you?
No, it was me. It was. No, it was definitely me. And I think I will say this. I sort of walked into the third one with the confidence that I literally just landed in Chicago. And the first two went so well that like obviously the third one has to go even better. And then when I was getting nothing off of a couple of the same jokes I had done, I was like so flustered by it that it was it was me.
What did your parents and your grandmother think after having invested so much of their time and money and emotional thinking into schooling you and sending you to the Montessori school? I don't know if they helped you pay for college, but you went to college. And now you're pursuing this really risky profession. How many people really make it as a comic?
Were they wringing their hands and thinking, Oh, all of that for nothing. He's throwing his life away.
No, they were they were weirdly supportive. But I will also say that I did spend my time getting real jobs, doing it, never, never asking them to send me money or anything like that. Never, um. If anything, I tried to send money back when I could, you know. And I think that I kept it under wraps enough that first, maybe what? six, seven months or something like that, that they didn't even know.
And so I don't even really think that they knew how much I was pursuing comedy until I got passed at my first few clubs and started getting paid. And by then it was like, oh, OK, if this is going to be your little hobby, at least you're making a little money off of it. And as it progressed and as there was more success, I think it became harder to be like, OK, well. This was a bad idea.
You know what I mean? And so, you know, even my dad, like, that's one of my biggest, I don't even know how to describe it as anything but a regret because it wasn't fully in my control, but I suppose some of it was. My dad never got to see me go up. And he was, from the time I told him I was doing comedy, he was so excited and he loved
want me to succeed so much and i think that for the most part my family was mainly interesting giving me my best shot at being successful and able to take care of myself in college you were studying theater with a focus on lighting design which is very specialized did you already think you wanted to do comedy and this was the closest you were going to get in college
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