‘Good Talk With Anthony Jeselnik’ On Comedy Central Is A Late-Night Gift To Comedy Fans

All this talk about edgy comedians (and their edgy podcasts) puts me to zzzzzzz.

Give me a break. Whether it’s Dave Chappelle or Shane Gillis or almost anyone in between, the idea saying something out loud that’s awful and/or outrageous doesn’t necessary make it funny, whether you’re onstage in front of thousands or taping a podcast with your buddy. Where’s the joke? What’s the punchline?

Thank God, once more, for Anthony Jeselnik, who has returned to television with this limited six-week series on Comedy Central, Good Talk with Anthony Jeselnik.

“You just hit the jackpot, and no, I do not wish to elaborate,” Jeselnik said welcoming viewers to last week’s premiere.

Good Talk looks like a fancy one-on-one interview program, what with all the bookshelves and old-timey furnishings. And it sounds, at first listen, like another in a long line of podcasts interviewing comedians about comedy (even I have one!). With Jeselnik at the helm, however, it becomes something funnier and more mischievous. Think of when Stephen Colbert interviewed authors and politicians in character on his old Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report. Or go back just a little bit farther to Martin Short’s Primetime Glick. Or even Sacha Baron Cohen’s Da Ali G Show on HBO.

Now imagine Jeselnik surprising his funny friends by asking them just as many sincere questions as sarcastic ones.

On last week’s episode, featuring guest Kristen Schaal, Jeselnik even allows himself a moment to answer the biggest question about him, in all sincerity.

Schaal asked: “I have a question for you! When you write your comedy jokes, they’re so good. Do you think of the twist before you write it? Or do you think of the premise first, and then just like scramble your brain for the twist?”

“The latter,” Jeselnik replied. “I think of the premise, and I think of the different ways it can go, and then what’s like the meanest, most unexpected, but still makes sense, way.”

No matter how he portrays himself onstage, and has made his name as a cocky, offensive stand-up saying cocky, offensive things, Jeselnik thinks about his jokes and cares how they land. Likewise, his love of comedy comes through in each of these half-hour conversations with other comedians. The joy on his face when his guests don’t know what to make of a question, and even more joyful expressions when they surprise him in return, are contagious.

Fans of Jeselnik’s will note that, as he’d done previously on Comedy Central, he uses the network’s own archives to mock comedic gimmicks and archetypes. One recurring bit has a “Who Cares?” graphic brutally interrupt the guest if the talk gets too serious or boring.

At the same time, recurring segments such as “Agree or Disagree” allow Jeselnik and his guests (Nick Kroll, Schaal, David Spade, Kumail Nanjiani, Tig Notaro, and Natasha Leggero) dig into their respective positions on conventional comedy wisdom. Such as:

• Is singing, dancing or playing an instrument cheating in comedy?
• Is 100 percent of comedy based in surprise?
• Do you learn more about comedy from bombing than from killing?
• Do comedians really want to be musicians, and vice versa?
• Is it ever OK to run the light and go over your allotted time onstage?
• Should you always open with your second-best joke and close with your best?
• Does 95 percent of comedy just plain suck?
• Does it also suck when someone you know is in the audience?
• Do you need to show vulnerability onstage to be relatable to the audience?

The closing “Make God Laugh” segment makes time to pay tribute to a late, great comedian.

On the premiere episode, Jeselnik’s curiosity about Kroll’s Netflix series, Big Mouth, led to an interesting discussion about why comedians may favor animation for certain projects or premises.

In week two, Schaal debated Jeselnik about labeling certain comedy as “alternative.”

In future episodes, you’ll watch Jeselnik reveal that his favorite joke ever is an old bit of David Spade’s, learn how Four Weddings and a Funeral may have inspired Kumail Nanjiani to pursue stand-up comedy, see Tig Notaro tested on her deadpan abilities, and hear an odd 9/11 story from Natasha Leggero.

Lord knows we don’t need any more comedian-on-comedian podcasts. And yet. Good Talk is the talk show America needs right now.

If you truly love comedy, get off of Twitter and tune back into Comedy Central to watch some pros in action.

New episodes of Good Talk with Anthony Jeselnik air on Friday nights at 11pm on Comedy Central.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Good Talk with Anthony Jeselnik on Comedy Central