The Ben Mulroney Show - Can I just say comedian Whitney Cummings is cooler than I thought?

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

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you certainly don't get when it's just me. Please welcome to the show. Whitney Cummings, she is one of the great stand-up comics working in the world right now, and she's going to be on her big baby North American tour where that's going to bring her to Toronto on October 3rd at the Elgin and Winter Garden theaters. Whitney, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I'm going to be doing two shows. I can't believe that you guys are paying money to see an American talk. Are you going to be, are you in the Winter Garden or are you in the Elgin? Because I do you, have you ever been there? Ben, can you Google this, please? No, no, no. Let me tell you, you're going to love it. So it's one of the few theaters in North America that are stacked.

There's one on top of the other. And the one on the top is the Winter Garden Theater. It's one of the most beautiful theaters you've ever seen. The entire ceiling looks like you're in an enchanted garden. And it was closed for 60 years. For 60 years, they just shut it down. No one saw it. And about 30 years ago, 25 years ago, they opened it up again.

If you're in the Elgin, ask for a tour of the Winter Garden. You've never seen a theater like this in your life. Oh, wow. That's so Canada. That's to have a beautiful comedy theater. As you hear filthy things coming out of someone's mouth. You could be tough with the gorgeous flora.

Yes, I will look into that because I think last time I played like a symphony hall that was also stunning. I mean, look, comedy in Canada is in all seriousness. The fans are amazing. I just did the great outdoors comedy festival.

We went to Halifax, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary. And I learned a lot. I didn't know that Winnie the Pooh is from Winnipeg. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was a British soldier.

I guess he was allowed to adopt a bear I guess he's allowed doing that and he adopted a bear and named it Winnie But I also Now that I have a kid I look at kids books very differently than I used to How so?

I used to think Winnie to Pooh was the cutest thing on the planet Now I'm like why is this bear taking a boy into the woods and the bear's not wearing pants Can we put pants on the bear? And I've been thinking that and talking about it

And I was in Winnipeg and I was like Is this where you guys print it. Can we just put pants on the bear? Maybe move the shirt, add pants. We just do like an update. You know how they like did of the Landau Lakes butter? Correct. Correct. Exactly. Yeah. A little modesty wouldn't hurt that bear a little bit, I think. Then when I was in, I think two years ago, I was in Prince Edward Island and that's where Anna of Green Gables was written. Correct. written and I re sort of up to refresh my memory on did you it's about a brother and a sister who adopt a teenage girl yeah yeah well my favorite though is because you know that the Japanese

love Anna Green Gables you know this oh the red hair they love her right and so they will go they will go there and I saw a stand-up comic once every now and then there's a joke from a stand-up comic that lives rent-free in your head forever and he pointed out that the the Japanese will fly to the other side of the world to have tours of a woman's life who didn't exist. This is where, you know, this is where Anne would have churned the butter had she been real. And, and, but there's certain lines that they exist in your head and they will never go away. When do you know you've got a set worthy of a tour or worthy of a grand stage? I don't know if you ever feel that way.

I think every good comedian is so hard on themselves that you're like, oh, this isn't ready, this isn't good enough, this isn't ready, this isn't good enough. And, you know, so to me, I'm always doing a work in progress and I'm always trying to put myself in situations where, you know, I'm taking risks and I'm pushing it as much as I can because also, look, you know, it used to be you could work on a set for a year

and then shoot it and that was it. But now with how much comedy people are consuming all day and this new sort of revelation to comedians that we're not the only funny people. It's very traumatizing to us. But my favorite memes weren't written by a comedian, you know, some of my favorite photos I've seen on TikToks. I mean, you're seeing on social media, like, people are funny. It's new comedians, we'll just be able to be broken enough to, you know,

try to make drunk strangers laugh, you know, instead of having, you know, real lives and relationships. But so we have to also because of this, you know, people get to it. So it's like, you might have a great insight or a great joke, but like someone that just like works at Chipotle might tweet about, you know, the angle that you had. And so you just be constantly updating and constantly changing references and constantly sort of making sure that's not just about being funny. It's also about being like interesting and insightful because everybody has said every opinion. Yeah. So by the time you used to, you would go to a comedy venue and go like, oh, I'm going to hear something I've never heard. Now everyone's heard.

everything so you have to really kind of be in a constant like flexible like work in progress so when i'm in toronto Toronto will see a show that no one else has seen because i'm going to have to make changes based on what happened the weekend before so in my life so i do this show right and then i do i have a whole bunch of other things that i do i've got side hustles everywhere but i always view it as like this is the hub and all those other things are spokes and it occurred to me you've got stand-up comedy but you've also created tv shows you've executive produced TV shows. You've hosted, you've starred in them. You directed a movie, if I'm not mistaken. What's, for you, what's the hub and what's the spoke? Oh, wow. It's such a good question that I

wish I had an answer to. It's so funny people. I was like, and you're like a girl boss and you look, I'm just like, I really honestly just, you know, if something spikes my OCD and I get obsessed with something, I just kind of have to do it. I didn't even set out to direct a movie. kind of just was the only way I was going to be able to get it made. You know, so I think that with the way the business is, sometimes it's just like I have to take matters into my own hands. Like, I don't want to create this TV show. I just, you know, I was taller than any of the actors in Hollywood.

Like I'm just, I never could have passed in a part because I'm like, I come into an audition and it's just like fee, five, foe, and I could, you know, so I think most of the things I've done, it was out of necessity because it didn't work out the way that I wanted it to. So, you know, I think. that often our plan B is a way better plan A. So a lot of it is accidental. But I would say stand-up comedy is my hub always, always, always, always, always.

Or so I guess bad childhood is my hub. I'm trying to emulate your model here. And then, you know, because television got so weird over the past couple of years, I took a little break from TV. You know, I know my sitcom was on CTV up there. Yes, it was. Which I really. Chris Delia was on it with you, right?

Chris Julia was on it with me. Yeah. Oh, you guys, we don't get the same news. And then we, two broke girls, I think was up there as well. Yes, it was. But in the last couple of years, you know, America, as you know, in Canada, you've been feeling it too. That there's been a, you know, let's, you know, only monsters feel the need to pretend to be good people to get away with more monstrous behavior in a business where, you know, that was built on the back of a three-year-old. old toddler named Shirley Temple that was in a miniskirt working on grown men's laps. It's like, you guys, we need to like set a good example. It's like what? So the last couple of years have been a lot of these like guilt driven directives and protocols, which is like every character

has to be friends with someone who's in a wheelchair. Right. Yes. If there's not a wheelchair ramp in the strip club, we can't shoot the scene. We need one of the strippers in the scene to be handicable. And I just was like, I'm not going to try to make comedy. under these sort of new fake rules that are just because you guys couldn't control yourselves

and are bad people and we're pretending that, you know, this person that doesn't, this, this, this Chinese teenager is best friends with someone, an exchange student from Somalia. Like, stop it. Yeah, just stop it. Yeah, that would not happen. Okay, make a documentary. Donate. By the way, donate.

Do something else. So I was like, comedy can't be made under these circumstances. of like fear of you can't say this, you can't say that, you can't, you know. And so, but that's kind of died down a little bit. I think Hollywood just remembered that, you know, they're a bunch of psychopaths and, you know, trying to do the right thing, just, you know, it's too exhausting for them. So I'm making a television show now. So, you know, for me, TV would be my second spoke, but the TV business is, is such a mess and racket that it takes.

Podcasting would be another spoke. Yeah, that's fun. A totally reluctant job. I mean, you know, it's the, you know, the kind of thing where. you just get so sick of getting network notes and you know you want to connect with your audience so badly um you know and comedians the amount of attention we need is truly just um you know unfathomable you know do you love your job or do you job your love oh wow i don't get it you know you don't know that that that podcast where this woman you haven't seen that it's

of one of the most famous things. It's the most significant evidence that there are too many podcasts out there. And this woman said, someone once told me, don't love your job, job your love. And the podcast goes,

I love that. Is there an accent? Yes, she was, she was Persian. She was Persian. I was to say, beautiful Persian lady.

Beautiful Persian lady. Yeah. But, okay, the one that just got, that was on, there's a beautiful Persian woman that was just sort of, outed in America, at least for not.

Oh, no, not that one. No, no, no, no, no, not that one. Okay, okay. No, not that one. Hey, Whitney, so I have three. No, we're not stopping. Job, your love. What does that mean?

Well, that's the point. It doesn't mean anything. It's a dumb thing said by somebody who really hadn't thought anything through, but the guy there probably thought she was very pretty one to impress her and told him, tell her how much he loved it. That's the whole thing. If you Google Job Your Love, you will know exactly. what I'm talking about.

Yeah, this is, and this is why guys have successful podcasts and women don't. They say stuff like that. I don't know. I do think we're, you know, look, I'm sure that makes sense. I'm sure that makes sense. No, it makes no sense. That's the point. The guy was just trying to sleep with the pretty Persian lady.

Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's what that is. Yes, exactly. Okay, copy. So I've got three kids. I got twin boys are 15 and my daughter's 12. And I remember the first, this one time my kids were annoying.

me when they were about three and I stormed downstairs and I screamed I was all upset oh I'll be quiet and then I went back upstairs and I wasn't upset at all and I had this eureka moment I was like oh my god like I wasn't mad at all I just I just went down there and pretended to be mad it's like I bet my parents did that to me all the time I assumed they were always mad but I had I was able to walk in their shoes for a moment and I had a newfound respect for them. And I find myself becoming my dad a little bit, become my mom a little bit, as you're sort of embarking on your journey as a mother, are you becoming something different?

I'm not becoming my mom, thankfully, because I do not drink during the day. I'm not becoming my dad because I see my kid. So luckily, I think sometimes something's skipping. a generation, you know? And I think that, you know, people that had, I think, present parents, it takes them a second to put together how their parents had flaws, you know, and like, oh, my parents lied to me about that, you know, like, remember when they were just like, oh, no, you can't swim for 30 minutes after me. I know, lies. Like, oh, my God. Yeah. Like, what? Like, you know, things like that. We're like, oh, you can't turn the light on the back of the car when your dad's driving.

It's illegal. It's illegal. Right. Right. Lies. Lies. The ice cream, the ice cream shows music when it's out of ice cream. You know, like all these things. Yeah. And we look back and you're like, wait, I'm an adult now. I'm a parent now. They just wanted me to shut up. Yeah. And I think that when you didn't have present parents, then you kind of as you get older, you're kind of like, you know what? They had more good qualities than I thought. Because I was just like they were terrible parents. Now that I'm around, you know, 20-month-old toddler, that they basically are just like suicidally jumping. I'm like, my parents were around more than I thought because I never would have survived otherwise.

So it actually gives me just like a little more of an appreciation for them. But I'm trying to, I don't, and I have a son, you know, and it's a totally different deal. You're really just trying to keep your head above water. Oh, yeah. Boys are binary. Boys are, it's a one or a zero. And girls are every shade of gray.

It's nuance and confusion and riddles and... And the joke that lives rent-free in my head is that Louis C. K. won about how boys and girls, like, boys will damage your stuff and girls will damage your cycle. Yes, yes. Like a boy will just trash all your stuff. And then he has two daughters also. And one of the daughters was like, you know, my Barbie doll's head came off.

so can you rip the head off the other my sister's Barbie doll so we're even and I did it and I did it. Hey, Whitney, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Really appreciate it and looking forward to having you to hosting you here in Toronto. I know that everybody who comes to show is going on. There was apparently a little bit of hullabaloo about coming through customs about making political jokes and stuff. What do we do? What's up? I'm pretty sure you can do and say what you want, even if, even if our customs enforcement people wanted to take issue, they don't really have the manpower or the, or the weapons to do anything about it. Well, Ms. Pat, we almost didn't get through because she has felonies on her record.

And for Kreischer and I almost didn't get through because we had a bunch of fruit on the plane. Ah, yes, fruit and cheeses. That could be a problem. I've got to leave it there, Whitney, but thank you so much. The tour is a big baby North American tour coming to Toronto on October 3rd. Thank you so much. Hey, see you soon. And we'll see you tomorrow. We're renovating a hotel, expanding our resort, and breathing some life back into the lake house.

All while raising a family. It's messy, it's real, and it's all. Exciting. I can't tell if that's your exciting face. This isn't just construction. This is our life. Who needs sleep? Building Bomber, all new Sundays, on Home Network.

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