Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Hello, everyone, Welcome to The Daily Show. Ears addition, this
Speaker 3: is Devin dela Quante, writer for The Daily Show, and
Speaker 3: today I am here with Emmy nominated writer, actor, stand
Speaker 3: up and the newest Daily Show correspondent, Josh Johnson. Everyone,
Speaker 3: Hey man, welcome Josh Shaw.
Speaker 1: You doing.
Speaker 3: It's been an exciting few weeks. So you've been a
Speaker 3: writer here for people who don't know, since twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: That's when I met you. That's when we became officemates,
Speaker 3: paired together. Yeah, and now you are the newest member
Speaker 3: of the Daily Show news team.
Speaker 4: Walk us through it. How did this happen?
Speaker 3: How did your journey lead you to The Daily Show
Speaker 3: and onto the news team?
Speaker 5: Basically, yeah, I mean I got hired in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 5: We were officemates. I think that when I was even interviewing.
Speaker 5: When I came in for my interview, I think I
Speaker 5: randomly saw Roy Ann Hassen and just like in the hallways,
Speaker 5: and I was like.
Speaker 1: Oh, geez, oh geez, oh wow.
Speaker 5: You know, it just started to feel less like a
Speaker 5: potential office job I was going to get in more
Speaker 5: like an actual Oh, this is this is like where
Speaker 5: they make the Daily Show, which you would know showing
Speaker 5: up to the building. But yeah, that was that was
Speaker 5: really Uh, that was really wild. And then yeah, when
Speaker 5: I interviewed it was with Trevor. It was like I
Speaker 5: felt like we were vibing. But also he can never
Speaker 5: tell if that's like you've definitely got the job or
Speaker 5: these are just nice people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: So when I got the call that I got it,
Speaker 5: I was like floored. And then yeah, showing up. I
Speaker 5: feel like you were the best person to be paired
Speaker 5: with for the for the beginning, because you were very
Speaker 5: gracious with all the with all the questions, and you
Speaker 5: were also like giving me tips of like oh hey
Speaker 5: there's a chance no one will mention this, yeah yeah,
Speaker 5: so have just be ready for this as well.
Speaker 3: I do feel like your catchphrase that first couple of
Speaker 3: years was quick question.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would feel a tap on my shoulder and just
Speaker 3: quick question yeah yeah less so.
Speaker 5: Now yeah yeah, I mean if anything, now I have
Speaker 5: a quick question, but I know that you won't have
Speaker 5: the answer.
Speaker 4: That's good.
Speaker 1: I'll be like, hey, I don't know where to sit anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah I have nothing for you. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 3: where you should throw stuff out. I don't know any
Speaker 3: of this stuff any.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but no, I think that we had a good dynamic.
Speaker 5: I think that it only took a short year and
Speaker 5: a half before our office was legendary. I don't know
Speaker 5: if we'll ever reach those heights again.
Speaker 3: Well, it was very early on in the process that
Speaker 3: we were in our office, and then you were very
Speaker 3: close with Dulce Sloane, who she started as a correspondent
Speaker 3: then and know how soon it is into your time
Speaker 3: in the office. She came in with a trophy for
Speaker 3: you and handed it to you, and it was clearly
Speaker 3: she was roasting you by giving you a trophy.
Speaker 5: It was it was brutal and and well basically this
Speaker 5: is what she did that was cruel is she mailed
Speaker 5: it to me, so it was my first piece of
Speaker 5: mail at the show, and so I was like, the
Speaker 5: trophy was a knuck if you buck trophy, which is
Speaker 5: a trophy for a song that I despise, right, And
Speaker 5: so I can't remember, Yeah, it was maybe I think
Speaker 5: maybe I opened it was was.
Speaker 1: Shocked and then.
Speaker 3: I remember you putting your head in your hands, which
Speaker 3: is a weird thing to see someone do when they've
Speaker 3: just opened a trophy. Yeah, so there was a lot
Speaker 3: of things going on in that moment.
Speaker 5: Then I think I put it in I think I
Speaker 5: put in her office for like a day or or something. Sure,
Speaker 5: I just try to leave it with her, and then
Speaker 5: she brought it back I think, to our office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was like, no, this is yours.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It did feel like it immediately became a hore crux
Speaker 3: for you, like, yeah, keys of your soul broke off
Speaker 3: and was imbued into that trophy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The other thing that was great.
Speaker 3: About it was about like to Josh Johnson for something
Speaker 3: for knucking and bucking. But it wasn't even the winner.
Speaker 3: It was the runner up. Yeah, we didn't even win
Speaker 3: the trophy.
Speaker 1: Which apparently was Roy.
Speaker 5: Yes, that was Roy that was helping her come up
Speaker 5: with this horrific gift.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: And then I you know, we had what I'd say,
Speaker 5: all the way up until COVID, we had such a
Speaker 5: great like a fool whatever maybe like nearly three year
Speaker 5: run in that office of just like phenomenal times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty seventeen until twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then oh geezy.
Speaker 4: Powers that be, it was too powerful. They had to
Speaker 4: split us up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they they split us up first with a global pandemic. Yes, yes,
Speaker 5: and then when we got back an office switch.
Speaker 3: Really nothing else would have been powerful enough to break
Speaker 3: us apart in the office.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I also remember you, I'm very kind of neat and
Speaker 3: organized and fastidious and you're less.
Speaker 4: So is that fair to say?
Speaker 1: To the point where fair?
Speaker 3: You had back injuries at that time, and to make
Speaker 3: your chair more comfortable you put bubble wrap on it.
Speaker 3: Not even like a pillow or something ergo. You just
Speaker 3: had like loose bubble wrap like you were an Amazon package.
Speaker 3: So that's how you were protecting yourself in the office.
Speaker 1: Basically, I did not. I had tried all of.
Speaker 5: The sort of normal ways of dealing with the problem,
Speaker 5: and all of the small pillows were too small to
Speaker 5: where they were just like maybe hiking my my hips forward,
Speaker 5: and all the big pillows were so big that the
Speaker 5: chair was not supporting me in the pillow.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 5: So then I was like, I I got all this
Speaker 5: bubble wrap from I can't remember what it was. I
Speaker 5: think it was actually something that had been sent to
Speaker 5: the office and it was about to be thrown away.
Speaker 3: Could it have been the Dulce trophy? We got bubble
Speaker 3: wrap out of the trophy.
Speaker 5: It could have been the trophy. And so then I
Speaker 5: went ahead and just wrapped a little bit of the
Speaker 5: chair in some bubble wrap because it felt like enough
Speaker 5: enough give and enough firmness. Sure, it sounds crazy, like
Speaker 5: I actually forgot I did this until you.
Speaker 3: Just say yeah. One other thing I wanted to bring
Speaker 3: up from our time as office mates. I wrote this
Speaker 3: down because I went through some of our old messages
Speaker 3: where we used to like talk when we were in
Speaker 3: the office, and I had forgotten about this. There was
Speaker 3: a time when I walked into our office and on
Speaker 3: your computer screen was a Vice article that said the
Speaker 3: headline was making people laugh for a living sucks in
Speaker 3: all caps. Yeah, And it felt like such a cry
Speaker 3: for help that you just laughed open on your computer screen.
Speaker 4: In the autice, I'm like, is everything all right?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: Do you want to talk? What's going on?
Speaker 5: That is so funny? I? Yeah, I also forgot this happened.
Speaker 5: I am not the best at reading articles in the moment. Sure,
Speaker 5: I clicked on the article and then I think someone
Speaker 5: paged me or something, and then I just left it
Speaker 5: as like nearly my screensaver all pretty much for like
Speaker 5: maybe two days, And it wasn't until I didn't even
Speaker 5: put together how it must look until you said something,
Speaker 5: because I was like, oh, yeah, not me, it's the
Speaker 5: guy wrote the article.
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of tying to see how.
Speaker 4: Think you're projecting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have bad news about.
Speaker 3: What you have to do as a correspondent is making
Speaker 3: people laugh for a living is kind of You've kept
Speaker 3: on the path yet if it.
Speaker 4: Sucks you are You're very much on that path.
Speaker 5: I've really stayed the course you have. It's a good
Speaker 5: thing that I did not write that article. I was
Speaker 5: just sort of curious what this other person was going through.
Speaker 4: That's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: If I'm being completely honest, the entire transition from writer
Speaker 5: to to like corresponding what I'm doing now was very
Speaker 5: very like quick really yeah. Yeah, So I'm I'm very excited.
Speaker 5: I feel like I've been working towards it for a
Speaker 5: long time. Yeah, But also I'm very much like trying
Speaker 5: to keep my eyes wide open.
Speaker 3: How did you find out? What was the Was it
Speaker 3: a phone call? Was it a call into someone's office,
Speaker 3: was it you know.
Speaker 5: Like the Yeah, yeah, it was a it was a
Speaker 5: phone call from my reps, and it was very close
Speaker 5: to when I was first on the show, so it's
Speaker 5: like like that cookie monster thing to the Yeah, it
Speaker 5: was like because my time as a writer was going
Speaker 5: to come to an end very close to the to
Speaker 5: the end date in March, and so I was like, yeah, wow,
Speaker 5: this is all happening. Yeah, it was just a beautiful
Speaker 5: transition one to the other.
Speaker 3: One thing that people at home won't know is you
Speaker 3: and I have written with Dulce a lot, and there
Speaker 3: we did a test show for John to come back,
Speaker 3: sort of like a rehearsal and you play. You filled
Speaker 3: in for Dulce at oh yeah test show, and the
Speaker 3: energy in the building was just so palpable the whole
Speaker 3: day where it was like John was back, and then
Speaker 3: the whole we hadn't done a full what's called a
Speaker 3: whip where like you go around from all the different
Speaker 3: news team members like Okay, we're going to go to
Speaker 3: Costa and then to Desi, and then to Dulce and
Speaker 3: then to Rannie and then to Klepper, so everyone's there.
Speaker 3: It's a ton of energy, and Dulce wasn't in New
Speaker 3: York at that time, so you filled in for her,
Speaker 3: believe me when I say you murdered so hard you
Speaker 3: just it was so incredibly funny, and in a day
Speaker 3: where there was so much energy in the building, the
Speaker 3: fact that you were just destroying out there and we
Speaker 3: were all laughing, and I don't know if you felt
Speaker 3: it or not, but there was a moment of like, Oh,
Speaker 3: he's gonna be a correspondent on the show, because he is.
Speaker 3: It was that level of funny. And it was also
Speaker 3: like Dulce's voice because you know how to write for
Speaker 3: her so well, and then she did so great in
Speaker 3: that bit, but it was also your voice in this
Speaker 3: kind of weird way, and you could see like a
Speaker 3: glint in John's eye and everyone was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: It felt like one of those showbiz moments of like,
Speaker 3: this is a star making performance. At least it felt
Speaker 3: that way from my point.
Speaker 1: Of, oh, thanks man, it was great. John.
Speaker 2: Can I interrupt here?
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: It's Dulce. So on, everybody, I'm gonna assume that's the
Speaker 6: same diner. What part of the diner is that.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm outside the dinner because I'm talking to black people.
Speaker 1: We don't go to diners.
Speaker 6: Well, what unique respective to the black people have about this election.
Speaker 2: All say their unique perspective is it's the same as
Speaker 2: everyone else. You know. They don't want this shit. They
Speaker 2: can't believe that I have three hundred million people this
Speaker 2: country churned out the exact same old man fight we
Speaker 2: just had. One lady told me she, oh, she died
Speaker 2: in the voting booth. I can't blame her. I asked
Speaker 2: one dude what he thought about the candidates. He told
Speaker 2: me leave him the fuck alone, and he was right
Speaker 2: to say it. I still threw hands, but he was right.
Speaker 3: And then one of my other favorite days was when
Speaker 3: we found out that you were going to be a
Speaker 3: news team member, because we were in the morning meeting,
Speaker 3: we watched all the clips and you were there as normal,
Speaker 3: and then they made an announcement that Josh is joining
Speaker 3: the show as a news team member, and we cheer.
Speaker 3: It was so fun and exciting because it was like
Speaker 3: as if we were your friends finding out, but also
Speaker 3: your colleagues finding out, and also we get to work
Speaker 3: with you in that capacity, which was so fun. And
Speaker 3: so then we go off and we pitch some ideas
Speaker 3: and we ended up doing that cookie Monster piece, which
Speaker 3: was really fun because there was so much that because
Speaker 3: it's I think we feel like it's a gift anytime
Speaker 3: we get a story that is political but pop cultural
Speaker 3: but has a bit of silliness to it where we
Speaker 3: can play with it.
Speaker 2: Josh, look, I love hating stuff too. Why don't you
Speaker 2: be a little too hot on mister monster. He's trying
Speaker 2: to fight He's trying to fight shrink flation. Oh you're
Speaker 2: telling me that Cookie Monster just brought up shrink flation
Speaker 2: the same week as Biden on his own. The only
Speaker 2: words I've ever heard Cookie Monsters say are me and
Speaker 2: Cookie who taught him shrink flation?
Speaker 3: Walk me through that day from your point of view
Speaker 3: as a member of the news team, having obviously you've
Speaker 3: experienced it as a writer, But what was it like
Speaker 3: as a member of the news team putting that piece together?
Speaker 5: It actually felt fairly quick, because then I had to
Speaker 5: do so many other little things that I could only
Speaker 5: into the office with you all. You know, really after
Speaker 5: you were like close to done, right, like y'all were,
Speaker 5: y'all were close to done, and then and then we
Speaker 5: went to rehearsal, and then rehearsal was okay, and then
Speaker 5: we went to the rewrite.
Speaker 1: And I do feel like at rewrite.
Speaker 5: We made it much better going into the uh, the
Speaker 5: the final for the show. Then it then it wasn't
Speaker 5: rehearsal because I thought it was really funny going into rehearsal.
Speaker 5: And then yeah, I think I think the whole thing
Speaker 5: just elevated, which was really really cool to see, because
Speaker 5: sometimes whenever you come out of rehearsal, especially as a writer,
Speaker 5: you're like, well, I might be out of ideas because yeah,
Speaker 5: working on all day and those were my best ideas. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and then you either come out with a directive or
Speaker 5: you come out with something else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we initially had an ending where you were
Speaker 3: just furious at Cookie Monster the whole time. The basic
Speaker 3: GISTs of it were that you were why would Cookie
Speaker 3: Monster care about shrinkflation? He drops cookies all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then there's bigger problems on Sesame Street. Oscar is homeless. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that came up. And then we were trying to come
Speaker 3: up with like an emotionally grounded reason for you to
Speaker 3: hate Cookie Monster, and we thought it was funny that
Speaker 3: you were never allowed to eat cookies as a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you just had to sit on the couch eating
Speaker 3: carrot sticks and you watched this monster just throwing cookies
Speaker 3: into his face and he's not even getting them in
Speaker 3: his mouth. And so then it ended with you like
Speaker 3: eating a bunch of cookies and crying.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then like you try something in rehearsal and it
Speaker 3: didn't like hit the way we wanted it to hit.
Speaker 3: So we got rid of that and we added this
Speaker 3: thing where we talked about it at the desk that
Speaker 3: there was something weird about the fact that Cookie Monster
Speaker 3: was talking about shrink flation, and we didn't know if
Speaker 3: Ronnie would talk about it in the headline or if
Speaker 3: you should talk about it in the chat, And we
Speaker 3: went back and forth. I remember when we were rewriting
Speaker 3: it and then we're like, let's just take a crack
Speaker 3: at it, and we got to the line of like
Speaker 3: the only the why is Cookie Monster.
Speaker 4: Bringing up shrink flavor on his own?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And that felt like such a great line in
Speaker 3: your the voice of your stand up and everything, And
Speaker 3: how did that How is that process as a as
Speaker 3: a performer for you to to kind of work with
Speaker 3: the writers and tell us your voice, and are you
Speaker 3: teaching us how to write for you or I think.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Personally, I've always thought like voice is relative, Like, no
Speaker 5: matter who I've been writing for, I feel like outside
Speaker 5: of something being like dirty or something, I feel like
Speaker 5: people just pick good jokes that they want to say.
Speaker 5: So I know that's what voice is supposed to be.
Speaker 5: But I think that sometimes people think about it so
Speaker 5: much in a way that's a little it's a little
Speaker 5: limiting because it'll be like, oh, there's all these great jokes,
Speaker 5: but none of them are in the person's voice. It's like, no, no,
Speaker 5: any any person who likes jokes will pick lots of jokes,
Speaker 5: do you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And so I think that for me, I I think
Speaker 5: everyone already baseline writes things that I want to say,
Speaker 5: Like every every writer that we have, I see from
Speaker 5: when I was writing, you know, two weeks ago, Like
Speaker 5: I see there their jokes when when we're all pitching
Speaker 5: and everything, and I'm like, that's a great joke.
Speaker 1: That's a great joke. That's great.
Speaker 5: So voice to me is is uh is relative to
Speaker 5: like you know that that point of view. I get
Speaker 5: that it's important, but I also think that coupling what
Speaker 5: is clearly a great joke with how you want to
Speaker 5: say it is much more collaborative than just uh, that's
Speaker 5: a great joke, but it's not in my voice, so
Speaker 5: I won't even try to finagle the the the wording
Speaker 5: or something. I think that the the the entire point
Speaker 5: of a of a of a voice, and what makes
Speaker 5: it memorable is making as many things work as possible,
Speaker 5: you know, And then as far as the performing it,
Speaker 5: I was more like, what's the because you are you
Speaker 5: are figuring out who you are gonna be to everybody
Speaker 5: in the moment, and as you progress, so then figuring
Speaker 5: out who you're gonna be to everyone is a collaborative
Speaker 5: process as well, because to some degree you are like
Speaker 5: being what however you authentically feel about the bit. Yeah,
Speaker 5: then for the rest of it, you also have to
Speaker 5: be aware of how you come off to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we had that whole run of Cookie
Speaker 3: Monster doesn't have a digestive system. He doesn't know the
Speaker 3: feeling of having his pants around his ankles and having
Speaker 3: to shovel like shuffle through his own apartment like he's
Speaker 3: robbing the place, and that his girlfriend walks in.
Speaker 2: Explain to me why Cookie Monster cares about toilet paper.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have a digestive system. He's never taken a
Speaker 2: shit in his life. He doesn't know the pain of
Speaker 2: sitting on toil with a stomach full of lamb curry,
Speaker 2: run it out of paper and having a side step
Speaker 2: your way out doing the pants around the ankle waddle,
Speaker 2: like you rob a your own house only for your
Speaker 2: girlfriend to walk in see you then immediately walk out.
Speaker 2: Do you have to deal with that, mister cookie monster?
Speaker 1: Because me did, Me very much did.
Speaker 3: And we talked about do people will this work if
Speaker 3: people don't know Josh yet, because it felt like a
Speaker 3: way that you would deliver it as a performer, and
Speaker 3: it was coloring in like anxiety in the character that
Speaker 3: is you, you know you on the show, and it's
Speaker 3: sort of like, well, can we do that?
Speaker 4: Will people connect to it?
Speaker 3: Or are we kind of establishing like this is what
Speaker 3: Josh is like that it is like nervous, anxious, angry,
Speaker 3: Like we're painting a lot of different colors of what
Speaker 3: your character is. And I feel like it worked really
Speaker 3: well and now it's like, oh, this is we've established
Speaker 3: that for you that now we can even go further
Speaker 3: with it and play with it more, and we're kind
Speaker 3: of introducing you and your psyche to the audience.
Speaker 1: In an ideal way.
Speaker 5: You will not just come off like funny, but people
Speaker 5: will understand what your point of view is every time.
Speaker 5: And then not saying that you should be predictable, but
Speaker 5: like I think down the line, people get excited for
Speaker 5: your take on a thing because you come off a
Speaker 5: certain way or because they think that they're excited to
Speaker 5: see what your point of view means to each new subject. Yeah,
Speaker 5: if that makes sense. And so it's only you know,
Speaker 5: it's only like one chat to go off so far.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I'm hoping that as we progress, people can
Speaker 5: get that feeling more often.
Speaker 3: We have to take a quick break, but we will
Speaker 3: be right back with Josh Johnson. You went out to
Speaker 3: talk to New Yorkers about the Trump sneakers that he announced,
Speaker 3: which you know he designed the sneakers and sold them
Speaker 3: at Sneaker Con.
Speaker 1: Now, what do you think of these sneakers? You know,
Speaker 1: it's very patriotic. I think that there's no rules in fashion. Okay,
Speaker 1: were whatever you want, But me, Percy, I.
Speaker 2: Would not would you copies you You wouldn't know hard pass.
Speaker 1: It looks very two thousand and nine deity. Actually, they
Speaker 1: look like they don't bend. What are your thoughts on
Speaker 1: this shoe trying to be ic okay, but also very nationalistic. Gotcha,
Speaker 1: now would you wear the shoe? Though? Okay?
Speaker 3: How is it to go out into the field and
Speaker 3: kind of not necessarily have a plan, but just trust
Speaker 3: that the comedy will come either from the questions you
Speaker 3: ask or what people say, or then that it'll boomerang
Speaker 3: back on you, like where they were roasting your sneakers,
Speaker 3: because I feel like you have a great you are,
Speaker 3: especially in a dynamic when like Dulce's around is, I
Speaker 3: feel like you quickly get into that younger brother dynamic.
Speaker 3: And then there was literally a seventh grader there just
Speaker 3: roasting you on your shoes.
Speaker 1: So how is going out to do that greater? Yeah? Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: it was cool.
Speaker 5: I think that because all of funny is relative, I
Speaker 5: think that what can be funny and who can be
Speaker 5: funny is much much broader than people imagine, And so
Speaker 5: I think when you're doing the pieces out there, it's
Speaker 5: important to sometimes take a step away and let the
Speaker 5: person you're talking to be funny, because if they have
Speaker 5: something funny to say, then that's way more interesting than
Speaker 5: something funny I have to say. Like I already know
Speaker 5: what I would say. If I'm gonna do all the jokes,
Speaker 5: then why did we come here? You know, the people
Speaker 5: that I'm talking to, especially the fact that I don't
Speaker 5: know them, the fact that you know their responses are
Speaker 5: earnest is like that's where all of the real comedy is.
Speaker 3: How did you feel when a seventh grader walked up
Speaker 3: to you and he was as tall as Victor Wibayama
Speaker 3: and then you had to stand next to him because
Speaker 3: it felt like you shrunk somehow.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. So you think if you wore these
Speaker 1: two school you might get like roasted up?
Speaker 5: Yeah, because like what great are you in seventh You're
Speaker 5: in seventh grade?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How tall?
Speaker 6: Six to one?
Speaker 1: I played basketball?
Speaker 5: You should When he said he was in the seventh grade,
Speaker 5: I did to get I had to get him to
Speaker 5: repeat it maybe twice.
Speaker 1: And even then I was like, nah, like this this,
Speaker 1: this is this feels like.
Speaker 5: You know like when a when a baseball team is
Speaker 5: like trust us, he's in the seventh grade. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: because my man was was huge and and even with
Speaker 5: even with him, I was like, oh yeah, this this
Speaker 5: kid's like got his own take on the thing. Just
Speaker 5: for me, asking and I think that's what That's what
Speaker 5: audiences enjoy too, is just there's always gonna be someone
Speaker 5: who has the same take as you, totally different and
Speaker 5: then something you wouldn't have thought of. And I think
Speaker 5: getting all of that from the people at large is
Speaker 5: more interesting than me just talking. And then maybe it
Speaker 5: lines up with one of those three things.
Speaker 3: Did you imagine that your daily show debut would be
Speaker 3: you being roasted by a middle schooler? Which seems like
Speaker 3: the nightmare? Right?
Speaker 1: It is on brand though, Sure it's.
Speaker 7: A pretty bad. But what about your shoes, Doug?
Speaker 1: What those are some dirty ass shoes? Broo a steak
Speaker 1: ass shoes?
Speaker 3: Be run a marathon.
Speaker 2: It's really about trauma, is it?
Speaker 1: You're lucky bigger than me?
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 5: As much as it is what I would not want
Speaker 5: for myself, it is probably the most likely thing to
Speaker 5: have happened.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I and look, I thought I thought it
Speaker 5: was pretty funny. Every once a while you get roasted
Speaker 5: and you're like, they're just right. I don't even know
Speaker 5: if that that's a a light crisp. I don't even
Speaker 5: know if that it's a full roasting. Yeah, definitely not overcooked.
Speaker 3: One thing I wanted to ask you about is how
Speaker 3: over the years working at The Daily Show has changed
Speaker 3: your approach to stand up comedy Because I'm like a
Speaker 3: huge fan of your specials and when you put out
Speaker 3: hashtag and then up here killing Myself, the one where
Speaker 3: you kind of intercut between you and a therapist, I
Speaker 3: feel like you were so great at writing about big, broad,
Speaker 3: evergreen topics. And then I remember it was during the
Speaker 3: writers strike, we weren't making shows and you were doing
Speaker 3: stand up and you started posting stuff and the thing
Speaker 3: you did about the Alabama boat fight where I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, and I was laughing so hard.
Speaker 1: Did you all see the Alabama brawl?
Speaker 2: Yo? Yo?
Speaker 1: Who knew Wakanda was in Alabama?
Speaker 4: Was crazy?
Speaker 1: That was wild? So many people came out of nowhere
Speaker 1: that that shit was like black Jay.
Speaker 3: Where is it? And I feel like you've kept up
Speaker 3: the momentum of writing about topical things and doing it.
Speaker 3: Do you think writing here and working here has made
Speaker 3: you want to do that more or is it just
Speaker 3: how social media is now with stand up where you're
Speaker 3: putting clips out more and more.
Speaker 5: I think that the show has helped a lot in
Speaker 5: that the show has become its own sort of daily
Speaker 5: practice for years in writing, when you don't feel funny,
Speaker 5: or you don't feel like it, or you don't feel
Speaker 5: creative enough or whatever, and you still manage to help
Speaker 5: make a show. I think is the greatest testament to that,
Speaker 5: Like art and creativity aren't these esoteric ideas that are
Speaker 5: just gonna come and go and leave you and stick
Speaker 5: with you sometimes. And it's not like an angel that
Speaker 5: might abandon you or something. It's like, it's just a
Speaker 5: willingness to commit yourself to something every day.
Speaker 4: And it's like lunch pail work. Yeah, John would say
Speaker 4: about democracy, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, And so I think that that helped. And
Speaker 5: then yeah, when we were on the writer strike, I
Speaker 5: wasn't doing anything else, and so I felt like it
Speaker 5: was the perfect time to start doing that, and I've
Speaker 5: tried to keep up with it ever since. And I
Speaker 5: also just felt like if I can commit myself to
Speaker 5: putting out a lot of new stuff, especially on a
Speaker 5: place like YouTube, especially written jokes instead of just crowd work,
Speaker 5: I think that it would one set me apart, and
Speaker 5: two I'd be able to connect with the community that
Speaker 5: I'm trying to build in a deeper way, and so
Speaker 5: I think that the show has definitely helped me to
Speaker 5: both both sort of grasp and learn how to communicate
Speaker 5: better bigger ideas and stories that you have to both
Speaker 5: entertain people with but also tell them why they should
Speaker 5: care about it in the same moment.
Speaker 4: And immediately pivot to a comedic take on it.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You have to lay all the track of here's everything
Speaker 3: you need to know, and then here's an unexpected comedic
Speaker 3: twist on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I think that with the years of practice
Speaker 5: doing that here it was it was something that really
Speaker 5: helped with stand up because it gave me a more
Speaker 5: like worldly approach, hopefully to everything that I do.
Speaker 3: You were on the road with Trevor a lot too.
Speaker 3: When we were officemates in like twenty eighteen twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Every weekend you'd be like, hey, man, what are you
Speaker 3: up to this weekend? I'd be like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: my wife and I are going out, you know, we
Speaker 3: were getting ready to have a baby, or painting the nursery,
Speaker 3: and You're like, yeah, I'm playing the United Center.
Speaker 4: Like oh great.
Speaker 3: But you would always be like, what do you have
Speaker 3: to Oh, nothing much and just do it. A couple shows,
Speaker 3: and then I would look it up and I'd be like,
Speaker 3: you're playing at the like where the Chicago Bulls played
Speaker 3: like it was nothing. So what did you learn doing that?
Speaker 3: And how did that prepare you for you know, joining
Speaker 3: the show on camera?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 5: I learned very often that it was not my show
Speaker 5: at all, like it was you know, not that I
Speaker 5: ever thought was, but just you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: like like it's very it was very like kind and
Speaker 5: gracious of Trevor to even bring me and everything. And
Speaker 5: I only say that because like you are part of
Speaker 5: this thing. And then people, you know, he has great audiences,
Speaker 5: so then the people were excited for anybody to open
Speaker 5: up the show or anything like that. So with Vince
Speaker 5: and I, it was just such a it was such
Speaker 5: a rush of a feeling and everything. And then you'll
Speaker 5: do your set, you know, so I'm only doing a
Speaker 5: little bit of time, and then you do your set,
Speaker 5: and then you realize like the difference between what you
Speaker 5: could do with your time and that what he could
Speaker 5: do with his, and so you're just like, oh ooh, wow,
Speaker 5: this is this is very different, you know, I mean.
Speaker 3: What's the big difference between you then and you now?
Speaker 3: Because it's been like probably five years even since you
Speaker 3: were doing those, Like what you think has changed in
Speaker 3: your writing and and your performing since then.
Speaker 5: I think I'm just a bit more like like confident
Speaker 5: in what I want to say, and I also move more. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: because because Tremor was like eventually you go have to move.
Speaker 1: He's He's like, you're doing You're doing an arena. You
Speaker 1: can't just stand.
Speaker 3: I mean you did have to sort out your back
Speaker 3: with bubble wrap.
Speaker 4: Yeah you could do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, ye'd be fair just turn and hear seven pops
Speaker 5: yeah and then start walking.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but now I just I'm that was that was
Speaker 5: kind of my uh, sort of awakening to how big
Speaker 5: comedy could be because I had always heard of comedy
Speaker 5: happening in these places, but to actually see it and
Speaker 5: not just see it, to like see it from backstage
Speaker 5: and to do some of it is like crazy, Like
Speaker 5: I always fail you.
Speaker 4: Two was here last night. Yeah, now I'm on this
Speaker 4: stage like what.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I always felt like the most like blessed guest in
Speaker 5: the in the in the way of like being able
Speaker 5: to be around for that stuff.
Speaker 1: Because that was just yeah crazy man.
Speaker 4: That's cool. Well, the fact that you found both confidence
Speaker 4: and humbleness. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, look the any sort of humbled just
Speaker 5: trust me. It's been over years of terrible circumstance.
Speaker 1: Like where was I. I was at this place they
Speaker 1: had asked me to do the show. It was it
Speaker 1: was so funny. It was like when I still lived in.
Speaker 4: Chicago and.
Speaker 5: It was like some sports bar they had, and they
Speaker 5: wanted me to come, and I thought it was gonna
Speaker 5: be a showcase, but they just wanted me to come
Speaker 5: do like forty five minutes. Okay, so, which isn't actually
Speaker 5: the length of a show. That's the length of like
Speaker 5: a headlining set, but that's not the length of a
Speaker 5: whole show.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And so then I get there and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 5: is there a host? And They're like, no, it's all you.
Speaker 5: And I was like okay, and like and I'm so
Speaker 5: I'm so early in the stand up. I didn't think
Speaker 5: to ask about like tickets or anything like that. They
Speaker 5: just asked me to come because I guess one of
Speaker 5: the night managers saw me somewhere else and liked me
Speaker 5: and was like, come do a show here.
Speaker 1: We'll pay you whatever.
Speaker 5: And so then it's like not quite a sports bar,
Speaker 5: but sports were on and people were actively watching them,
Speaker 5: so they turn off all the TVs without warning. So
Speaker 5: then people are like, what are you doing? And then
Speaker 5: they're then they're like, uh yeah, show starting. That was
Speaker 5: the introduction, by the way, show starting. And so then
Speaker 5: I step on a wooden palette. Oh no, and I
Speaker 5: have the microphone and I'm just talking. And at one
Speaker 5: point I could just kind of hear this guy go
Speaker 5: what are you doing? I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: that's the word, what are you doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that'll keep you humble.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have that voice in your head when you're
Speaker 3: at the United Center that you were worried that that
Speaker 3: guy was going to be there again hoping to see
Speaker 3: a Bulls game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he's just going to go, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Any any long silence in an arena setting, I hear
Speaker 1: what are you doing?
Speaker 4: Before we go?
Speaker 3: I do want to You were talking of the internet earlier.
Speaker 3: I know they say not to read the YouTube comments
Speaker 3: or internet comments. Yeah, but since you've joined the news team,
Speaker 3: I did want to take a look at what the
Speaker 3: response has been from the good people online to you
Speaker 3: joining the news team. So here's a few Josh Johnson
Speaker 3: crushed it. His deadpan delivery, frozen pauses for the audience,
Speaker 3: and his inflection made every joke land a fantastic new edition.
Speaker 3: That's very kind, the good one. This is my first
Speaker 3: time seeing Josh Johnson, and I laughed so hard I
Speaker 3: cried keep him on the show.
Speaker 4: Wow, thank you very good calling for your job security.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then Josh Johnson is a new National Treasure
Speaker 3: Daily Show. Please buy this man some Jordans for the
Speaker 3: next shoe segment.
Speaker 1: You know, if I had Jordan's, maybe no, this would
Speaker 1: have happened.
Speaker 5: Maybe, Yeah, I mean if I had Jordan's then maybe
Speaker 5: maybe that kid would have had nothing.
Speaker 4: What are you working with? Now?
Speaker 3: What do you because I'm sure we can't see your
Speaker 3: shoes on camera. Definitely not on the ears edition.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, So right now, I'm I'm going with
Speaker 1: some on clouds.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: They are the black on Black and they are one
Speaker 1: day old. I've only scuffed them once. Okay, yeah, they're very.
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe avoid some middle schoolers, yeah easily, yeah, easily.
Speaker 3: I Actually I think I told you about this. This
Speaker 3: is years ago of how like when I'm I used
Speaker 3: to live down the street from a middle school, and
Speaker 3: I would walk around the school.
Speaker 4: Do you remember this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would take a left before I got to
Speaker 1: the school.
Speaker 5: I'd walk all the way around the school and then
Speaker 5: I'd take So I was just basically taking the long
Speaker 5: way home like I was a middle schooler because yeah,
Speaker 5: because dude, the kids are like and then one of
Speaker 5: them was big too, So it's like you can't even
Speaker 5: the fact that you're an adult doesn't even scare the.
Speaker 4: Like, didn't a football like land at your feet or something?
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, so this this was not at home, but
Speaker 5: it was in my neighborhood. A football landed at my
Speaker 5: feet and then I look up and they're like, throw
Speaker 5: it back. But then the fence, the fence was actually
Speaker 5: like really really high, like like crazy high, to the
Speaker 5: point where I don't know how they got it over
Speaker 5: they got it.
Speaker 1: Over there, but the most like but the fence where
Speaker 1: have not fully developed. But the fence was high.
Speaker 4: No, I know, that makes it worse.
Speaker 5: And so so then I try to throw it back
Speaker 5: and I hit the fence and it bounced back and
Speaker 5: it hit me on my shoulder and like, yeah, I
Speaker 5: like I talked about it in stand up once before
Speaker 5: where I was like, they they roasted me so hard
Speaker 5: that I I genuinely thought about calling the police. I
Speaker 5: was like, I don't care how it looks. I'll be
Speaker 5: I'll be the next like barbecue, Becky cairen whatever. But like,
Speaker 5: they can't just get away with this because then because
Speaker 5: then I was like, all right, I'm just gonna go
Speaker 5: because there's no way I'm gonna get the ball over
Speaker 5: the fence.
Speaker 3: I like to think that one of the kids that
Speaker 3: roasted you was the same kid that you saw in
Speaker 3: the sneaker piece when you went out, that he's just
Speaker 3: been yeah that he's just got a arm school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a great arm.
Speaker 3: And he's seven foot one and he's just following you
Speaker 3: around roasting you. Middle Schoolers are your natural predator, So
Speaker 3: I just I hope you stay safe out there, try
Speaker 3: to avoid do all good things as a member of
Speaker 3: the news team, But any middle schoolers who.
Speaker 1: Will roast you probably just gonna stay in the building.
Speaker 4: That's a good idea. Yeah, it's probably best for everyone.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for joining me on, Josh Johnson,
Speaker 3: and thanks for listening to The Daily Show your's edition.
Speaker 7: Yeah, explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe
Speaker 7: by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 7: Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on
Speaker 7: Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 4: This has been a Comedy Central podcast