The Flop House - FH Mini 148 - Stand-Up Movies, with Matt Koff

Episode Date: March 21, 2026

Stuart leads a discussion of stand-up comedy in the movies, with the help of our special guest: acclaimed comic and longtime pal, Matt Koff. Matt Koff’s comedy special, CAT MAN, is now available for purchase at Veeps.events/mattkoff Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets! It’s the best way to keep up on all things Flop House!

Welcome to another flop house mini That's an episode of the flop house that is shorter than a regular episode. It's what we release on the off weeks. Normally we watch a bad movie and talk about it, but this week we're going to be doing something a little bit different. Today, I'm your host, Stuart Wellington, and joining me are Dan McCoy. Elliot. Oh.

Come on. And Elliot Kalin. That's right. We are joined by our stand-up comedy expert, Matt Koff. Friend of the podcast, you've been on the show before, right? I have. I think you've filled in for me, which those are big shoes. Yeah, it was not easy.

Okay. Well, I think you did a lovely job. So our stand-up comedy expert is perfect because we're not here in the flop house. We are in the L-M-A-O-H-O-U-S-E. That's right. And we are talking about stand-up comedy. I don't know why you had to spell out house. Well, I was already spelling out LMAO.

That's true. It was a good point. I just keep going. Spelling out the word. There's some logic in there, right? Yeah, that makes sense, yeah. So we're going to be talking about stand-up comedy in the movies. The first part of today's show, we're going to be talking about movies about stand-up comedy.

And after that, we're going to talk a little bit about stand-up comedians who become movie stars. Now, for this first part, we're talking about. talking about stand-up comedy in the movies. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to mention the names of movies, and you are going to weigh in. I'm going to especially be leaning heavily on Matt here. Lean in, weigh in on whether or not

this is an accurate depiction of stand-up comedy and whether or not this is a good movie or not. Obviously, my two co-host, Dan Nellet, can also chime in. You don't just have to sit there twiddling your thumbs like Elliot's doing right now. And this is predicated on us. remembering these movies. I sent you the movie list ahead of time.

Sorry, sorry, I didn't do the homework. Dan is just saying the subtext that every episode of the flop house is predicated on the idea that we remember the movie that we're talking about. Yeah. Okay, so... Ever since that time when we were covering Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Dan got hit on the head with a coconut right before recording.

Mm-hmm. That's... We all remember that. Yeah, except for Dan. Obviously, yeah. What? Obviously, if you have not seen this movie, like, to be honest, I haven't seen half the movies I'm going to ask you as well. You can gloss over it or make it up.

That's why we're doing a podcast. Okay, so first one is... There's nothing in the rule book that says a podcast has to be accurate. Thank you. First up is Mr. Saturday Night. Have you guys seen Mr. Saturday? Okay, so this is Billy Crystal. William Crystal, yeah.

Playing sort of a Borsh-Selt comic. It's a period piece. You know, it covers a whole life. I've not seen it. I also have... I also have not seen it. All I remember is from the... You know, I've seen one scene,

which is when he's an old man, and he's been relegated to doing a commercial for an adult diaper. I remember seeing that scene, and he finds it beneath him. And I remember the line from the... Literally. The line from the commercial

where someone asks, he's like talking about the table, he got a restaurant, and he goes, oh, it's the bed... Is there somewhere else you'd like to eat? Madonna's breasts. but there's too long a line or something like that. The kind of joke that's not really funny,

but it's delivered as if it's funny, you know. And you have to think about that one. Now, and he, in this movie, I believe he was like either in a comedy team. Yes, David Pamer is also in it and plays his brother. Yes, yeah. Oh, yeah, okay. So it is his brother. I thought, like, I think it's his brother.

And, like, they're either in a comedy team together and Pamer gets left behind or, like, Pamer's, like, kind of his agent or something. I think he's like his agent or his manager. But I've never seen the whole movie. You guys are pretty good, though. We know a lot about this movie we've never. This is the movie that we haven't seen. I remember a trailer.

I remember thinking it's a bad stand-up comedy, but it doesn't seem like a fun movie. No. It's kind of counterintuitive. I remember wanting to see it because I thought it was going to be a comedy, and my parents telling me, no, that's not going to be a funny movie. It's not really a funny movie. But the trailers made it seem like it was about,

it was a funny movie about a comedian. This was around the City Slickers era, right? It's a little bit after City Slickers, I think. When Billy Crystal had a blank check to make whatever wanted. Yeah, that was what it was. pre-curly's gold, I imagine. Maybe. Well, after we learned about...

First how he got the blank check is he paid for with Curly's Gold. Everything changed after that, of course. You know, and I'm going to look up, Billy Crick. These are questions that we have the answers to, so let me just see. You guys can talk about. After there's no Fernando movie? How come there is no Fernando movie? You look marvelous.

Was that way... Does that his character on... SNL? That's one of his characters on SNL. Of course, the movie I think he would prefer to make is the one where he plays Sammy Davis Jr. A part that he did in Blackface on SNL for... Yeah.

A long time. And it will be directed by Spike Lee. There you go. So City Slickers is 91. Mr. Saturday Night is 92. City Slickers 2 is 94. So yeah, Mr. Saturday Night is nestled right between the two City Slickers.

Yeah. It's a little one for them, one for me, situation. Exactly. I have this bad movie I want to make. And then... That was the time. And then according to his Wikipedia,

filmography, it goes, 1995, forget Paris, which he also wrote and directed. 1996, Hamlet. That's Kenneth Brana's Hamlet. Right. He's played the Gravedigger. Yeah.

Yeah. And then it's just, and then Father's Day. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so we got a lot of these to go through. So I think we came to a conclusion on that one. Do you. Do the Princess Bride. The Princess Bride was earlier than that.

Just do it, though. But I just do it. Yeah. The king of comedy. King of Comedy. I just watched that. Okay. Yeah.

I'll tell you all about it. So what I'm at whether it's accurate or not? Is it accurate and is it a good movie? It is accurate and it's depiction of mental illness, 100%. I would say that's mild compared to what I see today at the average comedy club. Matt, that's how you got your special is you took Jerry Lewis hostage, right? Exactly. I was like, give me $15,000.

I also think it's accurate to some degree in that it shows that attitude is more important than material. Like, yeah. He delivers things as if he is a comedian and then actually get some actual laughs when he gets his chance. You should come to a comedy club because that is, that's mostly it now. But yeah, no, it is funny. A little bit scary is most comedy clubs. He's like the antagonist for most of the movie. Anti-hero?

Anti-hero, sure, yeah. But then you're like, oh, people love him. And I'm like, this is a very good depiction of stand-up comedy. I like to believe that Joker is a sequel to King of Comedy, and it's the same Robert De Niro character. And so when Joker pulls out the gun, right, he's like, well, what goes around comes around. Can't say I didn't earn this.

Joker is later in this list of questions. But I guess we can talk about that one, too. How's that, how accurate is Joker? I think Joker's accurate in some ways in that if you have bad material, people will not want to hear it, and you're also bad at performing it. There's that part in Joker where Robert DeNover, where Robert Niro's character goes out of his way

to show footage of an amateur comedian and an open mic night bombing so that he can make fun of it on TV. And I was like, I assume this is like a dream that the character is having because it doesn't make sense why the host of a late night talk show would show amateur stand-up

and then make fun of it as if anyone cares. But then he's a guest on the show later on, so I guess it's, and he kills him, so I guess it's hard for me to imagine them doing that, you know. That seems like more of a tosh type thing to do. You know. Okay.

And good movie? Good movie, King of Comedy? Oh, yeah. Game of Comedy? Yes. I love the movie. Funny people. How accurate to real life is the movie funny people starring Adam Sandler?

Well, life is long, and so is that movie. That's true. Now, I only watched the first half of that movie. I checked out, I think, during the scene where Seth Rogen and I think Ray Romano are heckling Adam Sandler and Eminem as they have dinner. And I said, this movie is not for me. This was made for a different type of, a different status of person than I am.

But is it, so I didn't see the rest of the movie. Is it accurate? I know the part, the only part that struck me as really inaccurate was when Jonah Hill realizes that Seth Rogan deliberately left him out of a major professional career boost and he seems to forgive him very quickly, like in the next scene.

I'm like, oh, they're not friends anymore. This is not. That friendship is over, you know. I mean, I will say Let's stipulate up front that I don't know that I've seen a movie about stand-up where I found any of the stand-up particularly funny. Like that is across the board, it's just like, well, apparently we can't do this, even though stand-up is a thing that gets filmed all the time and is funny often,

but we can't put it in a movie. But funny people at least comes close. Like it's got actual stand-ups. It's got comic actors who have dabbled in doing that kind of thing, and they're performing material that is better than other fake stand-up in movies. So I guess good on it for that. Yeah, there's who's in the... I don't remember who the stand-ups were.

I know these are in there, right? Yeah, yeah. But I can't remember who else. I mean, I feel like the only good fake stand-up I've seen is not every episode, but in several of the episodes of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She'll be doing stand-up, and I'm like, yeah, that's a funny thing. Like, that's a funny bit, and she's selling it pretty well, you know. Those were probably all the jokes, a friend of the podcast, Josh Gondelman wrote.

But even that, like that, I mean, maybe it doesn't matter because it's a period piece, but it is like older style stand-up where I'm like, well, it's not a lot of jokes necessarily. She's talking about stuff. I don't know about that, but maybe you didn't see the right episodes. She's doing, like, prop work, right? I haven't seen it, but she's doing like smashing shit. She takes out of guitar and does a lot of novelty songs. Yeah, that kind of stuff.

But I think part of the issue is that, in real life stand-up jokes there's like different variations of laughter that you get but in movies

often any joke of stand-up tells unless they are bombing and that's the point for the story the audience is just loving it

and falling all over themselves laughing and it's as much laughter as you can get and I think it's very hard no stand-up act

I think lives up to the idea that every single joke is just a non-stop you know gut-buster

well my my stand-up special does oh I mean except for my awesome this is a lovely segue for not to promote his upcoming stand-up special.

But that you bring up a very good point, which is that so much of stand-up in general is medium laughter. Yeah. Or pity laughter. I don't know if there's ever been a movie where it's kind of like the audience doesn't find it that funny, but they acknowledge that a joke has been told, so they kind of give a courtesy laugh. What's the Will Arnett movie that just came out?

Oh, is this thing on? Yeah. There's some pity laughter in there. I've seen that one. Did you like that? I liked it okay. I liked it better as like a movie about marriage than a movie about comedy. I find it kind of fascinating that Bradley Cooper continues to make movies about people in other artistic fields.

I think he's really fascinated by, by, yeah, creative people in that way. He's curious. I like that, my filmmakers. Yeah, whether it's about, whether it's a movie about comedy, a movie about conducting, a movie about a bad boy chef. I don't think he directed that one, but he was in it, right? Or a drunk. musician. Yeah.

Specifically, he had drunk music. He's curious about how drunk music works. And then he opened up a cheese steak place. That's crazy. It is crazy. It's kind of crazy. You know, it's good. Coopin buddies or something?

Buddies and Coop. Bodies and Coop. It's something like that. I don't know. It sounds more like a chicken place today. It does. It does sound like that, yeah. Okay, so we've covered a couple of things.

But wait, did you see, you've seen, Is this thing on? Yeah. Was it on? Is it a spoiler? Oh boy. It was on. You know, like, it was one of the few movies I went out to see in the theater because there

was a guild screening. Because you wanted the 4D experience? Yeah. No, I'm just like, you know, like plenty of this stuff comes to you via screener. But I'm like, oh, you know, I'll actually go to a theater and watch a movie that the guild is putting out. I did not stay around for the Q&A, even though I was asked to. Who was the Q&A with?

Was it Laura Dern there? I have no idea. If Laura Dern was there, I would have stayed. Did they personally ask you? No, it's like... Dan, you're going to need to be here from you. You know. Dan, we told Mr. Cooper that you would be here.

Revelations. There's going to be cheese sticks. No, you know, you guys know. When you get those, like, emails, they're like, please out of courtesy stick around for the next QAid. Because it's very dispiriting to, I imagine, to show your movie. and then you come out for the Q&A and the audience is often in the middle of leaving as the Q&A is starting.

Yeah. Wait, is that my coat? Is that my coat? But they need to understand that Q&As are almost always bad. Every now and then, there is a, there's a reason to stay at one of those Q&As. And I stay at them now if only because I remember seeing a guild screening of Frost Nixon, which a movie I think is fine. You know, it's okay.

And Ron Howard and the screenwriter, we're going to talk afterwards with the moderator. I'm like, I'll stay. And John Waters was in the audience. And he goes, I love that you had the girl from the bad seed play Pat Nixon. That was a great, that was a great touch. And you could tell Ron Howard, I think it had either forgotten or didn't know that this actress had been the girl. She's like, he's like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, sure. And I just, I would love being there for the moment where I'm like, this is the, this is what John Waters specifically zeroed in on in this movie.

No, that's great. I saw if I had legs, I'd kick you and Mary Bronstine was there and did a Q&A. and I really enjoy the Q&A. I don't always fail, but I want the option. I don't always fail, but when I do, it's, is this thing on? If you're the person responsible for sending out fancy screening Q&A invites, Dan doesn't automatically storm off. Okay, so fucking fancy.

You go up to a person who's sitting at a folding table. Oh, they look for your name, and they're like, what guild are you in? It's so fancy, man. Dan doesn't always get up when the credits are rolling and go, What is this shit? And then walk out of the theater. I'm disappointed in you, Bradley Cooper.

And you show up, I'm assuming, in Ugg boots and sweatpants. Well, Dan showed up in Limitless cosplay. He thought Bradley Cooper was going to sign his limitless costume. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's why I was mad. Okay. So on to our next movie, Punchline.

Punchline. So this is with Tom Hanks, right? Uh-huh, in Sally Field. Yeah, and I've never seen this movie. The only thing I know is our fellow former Daily Show colleague, Rory Albanyes, would always point out how the characters have a, there's a dressing room with lockers for all the comedians backstage, and he'd be like, when do I get my locker?

I don't understand. I love hanging out around the lockers after a stand-up show. That really stuck out to him. What do you put in there? You're like props and shit. Your notebook. Rubber chicken. Yeah.

Yeah, because you want to share rubber chickens. You know, don't you guys know about stand-up? Well, when you show up at a club, if you're lucky if they have a loner rubber chicken, if you forgot yours, but often you have to bring your own, yeah. You have to desanitize it, obviously. There's usually a bucket. Yeah, just like at a strip club where they have to wipe the bowl down.

You've got to take handy wipes and wipe down the chicken. I bet, yeah, I've never seen it. I remember the commercials for it again, but I was just a wee kid. I never saw it. Do you guys see it? I've seen it because it was, I've said before on the podcast, for whatever reason, my parents, like, would not go out to see movies. We're very frugal in all these other ways, but they were a very early adopter of HBO. So I saw all of these, like, movies over and over again.

And Punchline was one that was on HBO a lot. And, yeah, it's not, it is a, it is the classic bad movie about stand-up, I think. It's like, I didn't know at the time. I was like, yeah, I guess this is what stand-ups like. You get these lockers in the back. You'll hang out. You know, it's the same like six people at the show every night at the same theater. I guess that's...

Yeah, it's kind of like flash dance. But, yeah, in retrospect, it is nutty. That movie does not seem to know anything about what it's about. Okay, moving on. We have top five starring Chris Rock. Have you seen this? Oh, I forgot about that movie. I've not seen it.

Matt looks like he is trying to remember whether he has seen it or not. I have seen it, but I don't remember actually anyone doing stand-up in it. I think he is a stand-up and he wants to do a comeback maybe. Or maybe he wants to be an actor. I don't remember exactly. Yeah, I definitely remember leaving this is okay this movie. I feel like I remember Leslie Jones giving a stand-out performance, and that's kind of... Right.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, then, and then we've already covered Is This Thing On in Joker? So the last one is Dolomite is my name. Dolomite is my name. Well, from my time in the black clubs of the 1970s. I mean, I've seen that movie. That's a good movie. It's a good movie.

Yeah. I think it really captures my experience as a stand-up. Most accurately. The way. any movie on this list. Yeah. Matt Koff is my name, sure, but everything else matches up.

The way you, like, released those sort of, like, those obscene vinals, and then you managed to... Yeah. Turn that into being the lead and some sort of kung fu movies. Turns that into being the lead as if he didn't produce and directs those movies.

I rolled into it, yeah. I just had to maneuver. I don't know what is... I'm a Hollywood mover and shaker. I don't know what's odd about that framing of it. You took his success as doing this one thing, and he moved into a different area. He made it sound like he was seen by the studios,

and they were like, Rudy Ray Moore, we got to make a movie with you. But it was really him saying, I need to be in a movie. I have to make this movie, you know. Yeah. But you took the money from the LPs to do that. Yeah. I don't know how accurate it is to his rise, but I don't know. It's a good movie. Now, it is a good movie.

Now, Matt, you were saying that you would like to take your stand-up comedy career and turn it into a kung fu movie acting career. Yeah. How's that going so far? I wouldn't say it's going bad. Huh. Is there a word to be done? Maybe.

You're not there yet. I guess that's a good way to look at any sort of any number. of things because like, you know, like, my efforts to like break back into writing aren't going bad and that like I still have all my limbs. You know? Exactly. You have a family? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I have a house. Well, I don't have a house. You don't have a house at all. You live in an apartment, you know? You have locked and loaded. I hate to, I hate to be the, uh, the fact checker on this one, Dan, to be the Woodward and Burrater.

I think, uh, Dan just got some Pinocios over here. Yeah. I want to point out I also have shelter. So I think I'm doing pretty good. that kung fu thing. And your kung fu movie career. That's true. This is a perfect chance for us to do a little bit of a segue and talk, since we're

talking about Matt's acting career, there have been a number of stand-up comedians over the years who have tried to make the pivot from one stage to the big screen. Like Jeremy Pivot, the actor, yeah. Jeremy Pivot, yeah. So I'm going to go down a list of... Nobody turns like Jeremy Pivot. Yeah, no. No, that's good.

So am I ready for my one hour special? Yeah, I mean, that's your opening joke. So where do you go? And the closer, yeah, in the closer as well. Most of the middle. You also drink a glass of water very slowly. Anyway, Jeremy pivot, yeah. And you pivot in different directions.

What else? Yeah, oddly, you don't pivot in that whole. And by the end of it, you're just turning, you're not even saying a joke. And the audience is going apeshit. They're like, that's that thing. He's doing it again. He's doing it.

Okay, so I'm going to go down a list of various stand-up comedians or comedians in general. And we're going to talk about whether or not they've been in any good movies. And if they were acting in those movies, or if they were just kind of doing their regular material. Okay. Okay. Now, there may be some people... I tried to weed out the majority of concerning performers in here, but you never know.

And there's no way of knowing what we're going to learn after this episode is recorded. Yes, after this episode air. So first one, I think this is going to be an easy one. Eddie Murphy. Oh. Eddie Murphy. Has he been in any good movies and he's the enactor? Name one.

Well, there's an orbit. That's true. Certainly, he's had his periods in the wilderness where he's not doing such great work. But one of the most naturally... Well, when he did that remake of Jeremiah Johnson, he was in the wilderness the whole movie, yeah. One of the most naturally charismatic performers. and, yeah, can certainly give a performance that's not just Eddie Murphy. Yeah, I feel like maybe early on he was kind of doing his thing,

but has obviously proved that he can do more, if anything, because we mentioned my name is Dolomite, or Dolomite is my name. Dolomite, he's great in that. He's great in Dreamgirls, you know, he's great. I mean, I watched coming to America so many times than I was a kid that I associated Eddie Murphy with that character more than with kind of like fast-talking Eddie Murphy. Like I thought of him as the Prince of Zamunda character.

So, yeah, I'd say he could definitely act. So when you watch Delirious, you're like, what? I was like, why is he doing this American accent? I don't understand. He's also always been talented. He was on S&L at 18. Yeah. He just had these fully formed characters.

It's like he is a child prodigant. Well, 18, he's legally not a child. Yeah, it's just fast. Wow. That's splitting hairs over. That you could be and not be a child. Speaking of split ears and that. I have some legal issues coming up that kind of hinge on the definition of whether childhood continues in 18.

Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Elliot's joke, next one's Jerry Seinfeld. Oh, boy, yeah. Oh, so he was someone who had trouble recognizing when childhood ended in 18 billion or that, yeah. So is he pivoted to the small screen pretty successfully. We're not talking that. We're talking the big screen. The big screen.

No, I would say. I mean, he's only made two movies, right? B movie and pop-tard movie. Oh, yeah, a P-Tor movie. Well, I mean, he's got to have been in other things, right? I'm not sure about that. Take a look down. Trey Seinfeld is not an act.

I'll look it up. He's not an actor. No, he's not an actor. No, no. Even on Seinfeld, he's not an actor, yeah. He's like, he has this amazing support cast in Seinfeld. That's not an accident. They got really strong actors because he's just kind of himself.

Yes, yes. I think he's a great writer. I think he's a great stand-up. I mean, I think he's just. I remember I remember. had a professor in, oh, he's in, he's in a couple other movies, but he doesn't, mostly playing himself. The top five uncredited. As himself.

Well. And unremembered. Probably not a thing about my folks. Ah, yes, classic. What is the thing? I don't know. I don't know. It seems to have Paul.

Remember the thing about his folks, right? Paul Reiser and Peter Falk. He seems, but he's, again, again, it seems like he's playing himself in that. Oh, okay. He plays himself, it seems, in the movie Eddie with what be. go over this according to Wikipedia. So there's a movie called pros and cons where he plays Prisoner Number 2.

Oh, okay. But the, so I think the thing with, with, I think always that was funny with Seinfeld was, I had a professor in college who was like, your main character is going to be the one who's, you're going to have the most trouble

making interesting. And that's why on Seinfeld, there's all these other characters around because the main character is the one who doesn't get to be as crazy as the others. And you also want to establish your character early on. That's why they show him

showing stand-up at the beginning so the audience knows he's not good at stand-up and he's bad at it and he's not actually a funny stand-up. And I was like, oh, I don't think that's... I actually don't think this was happening. Oh, that's so funny.

Oh, that's a good line. Okay, so I think we're in consensus with Mr. Jerry Seinfeld. What about Robin Williams? Great actor. Yeah. Probably the acting is maybe better than the stand-off.

I would agree with that. I think as a stand-up, he was often, it felt like he was an actor playing a stand-up comedian in his stand-up. But, yeah, I think a better actor than stand-up. The stand-up... And he's been in a couple of good movies. Bicentennial man.

Jack. He's been... Mrs. Doubtfire. Popeye. Popeye. Yeah. I don't want to be too hard on a beloved deceased figure, but the stand-up did rely on, like, a lot of energy,

a lot of, like, sort of repeated, like, voice, like, stock characters he would go back to. A lot of Bougar sugar. Right, fellas? Oh, wow. Oh, wow. This is the part where we point out that Matt Koff originated the cocaine bit before it somehow migrated to Josh Kondelman.

It's okay. I've talked about it in therapy. I'm over it. It doesn't sound like that. No, it's not a definition, yeah. Yeah, but I think he was a brilliant actor. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's an easy one.

Ricky Jervais. Now, do we... Big screen? We're talking big screen. Big screen only. I would say that he was a guy who did other things that migrated into standup and wasn't that great. I will say years before he became a problematic person, he was probably already a difficult person. But I saw him do stand up at a relatively small show and he was very funny.

But it was not what you would call like fully professional standup. He was very funny talking about things. But it was not like, here's my act. And it's really funny and written. But when it comes to movies, I think, I don't, it's hard for me to think of any of But I haven't seen a bunch of them. I never saw like the invention of lying. I don't like the invention of lying.

What was that one with ghosts in it? Ghost Town was better than Invention. Like that's not very good. Ghost Town was okay. It's kind of a blur to be honest with you. What about Derek where he plays that mentally challenged person? That's a TV show. That's a TV show.

That's a TV show that my in-laws really wanted me to watch and I refuse to watch it. But I think he's a better actor than stand-up. It's a tough ask. Yeah, yeah. Or he asked it of himself. Yeah. It's like, I think I can handle this with taste and sensitivity. I got this.

I think it feels like Ricky Jervais in some ways is a real, the kind of cautionary example we should all take so that we can stay humble is that like his, the office is still, I mean, that was the cutting edge of comedy or television comedy at one point. And then it's like, I feel like the plummet was so far and so relatively fast with his other work. and we can all take lesson from that. Look, don't take anything granted. Because at a certain point, you start with the office

and eventually you're doing Derek or whatever it's called. There's some stuff in extras that's funny. Extra is funny. It does it somewhere. I like extras. I mean, I think it helps that they got very good cameos from people like, or guest appears by like David Bowie and Patrick Stewart. So cameos and Stephen Merchant are what you're going to extras for, I feel like.

Yes. And extras, it was, I feel like we had not yet seen an overload of you bring in a famous person so they can play a bad version of them like play a not a good person version of themselves and I feel like we've seen a lot of that but do you feel like Ricky Jervais maybe plummeted after

working with Stephen Merchant maybe that's maybe that was the partnership that was holding them afloat that's possible that's possible yeah I mean I certainly have found Stephen Merchant funnier in his subsequent work than I've had Ricky Jervais he's so tall and yeah and they were they were

podcast pioneers those guys. Oh yeah. Early podcast. They were. Okay, moving on. They have podcasts where they made fun of a person every episode, the same person over and over again. Felt gross when it was happening, but people seemed to like it a lot, so I didn't know

how to react. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Up next is Mr. Bill Burr. Bill Burr. I'm going to say up next is Mr. B. I'm like, I don't know if it counts.

Now we'll see Mr. Bean do so. What else? I know Burr's extremely talented. Like, I just, I prefer him as an actor just because I find his like sort of centrist's stic kind of distasteful. Like, and that's my personal feeling about it. You were too woke to enjoy his work, you know, that's okay. You know, you can admit it.

Yeah, you have woke mind virus. No, it's true. It's true. It's infected me. It's all over my brain. Deep in there. All over. Deep in there.

Yeah, he riddled with it. But I think, I mean, you're putting a spotlight on his acting. Do you prefer his acting work because you dislike his stand-up so much that you think is acting? No, I think he's a genuinely very talented actor. And I would rather see him do that than see him, like, be like, I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm just coming up right up to the edge and making you think about the edge. But no, no, no, no, I'm not on the edge. I don't like that stuff. I don't like that in lovemaking.

Yeah. But not my comedy. You're calling it, Matt. Yes. Ladies. So you're saying Bill Burr's doing some kind of stand-up gooning. Yeah. I saw him in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.

He was great. But I'm trying to, what are some other Bill Burr roles? I've seen, I'm mostly seen him acting in TV shows rather than movies. But, I mean, he was on Breaking Bad, right? Yeah. He was in Breaking Bad. He was in the Pete Davidson movie. Which one?

He was in the Pete Davidson movie. How was that? I didn't see that one. It was okay. You actually saw it. I did actually see him. Wow. And Bill Burr's good in it.

I mean, he's a good actor. I think I don't always, like, I don't always agree with the sentiments of his stand-up, but he's a good stand-up, too. Like, he's a really good stand-up. I can see the quality in it without it, my thing, you know. Yeah, I mean, that's what I say too. I'm not saying he's, like, very talented at what he does.

I just don't like the thing he does that much as a stand-off. And it always makes you cold, right? Because his last name is Burr. Yeah. You don't like how he's always, he always sticks to your socks after you walk through the woods, right? Because his name is Burr. Oh. Yeah.

Did you not, you really, you already knew I was making a joke about his last name and you couldn't make the connection. Well, you changed the type of, you changed the word. Like, it was a homophon. Oh, no, it's got a homophone, not a synonym. It's a homophone, man. Yeah. They do that in Harold openings a lot. I think that's, you were like learning all different kinds of, yeah, anyway.

So another stand-up comedian turned movie star. Our next stand-of-comedian turned movie star, Rodney Dangerfield. Okay. I think he was very talented at playing what I would call the Rodney Dangerfield role. I don't know what you really act, necessarily. I mean, he makes you believe he's in that situation, which is a form of acting. not losing himself in a character. I mean, I'm, I'm unironly going to back.

I really thought he was back to school. I'm going to unIrily back Elliot up here where, like, there are different types of acting. And some of it is just being a persona, but realistically within a story. And that is perfectly valid. Like, he's a good actor at being Rodney Dangerfield in movies. I mean, that is, you could call that star acting as opposed to actor acting, which is, I'm going to become this character. star acting is I'm being myself,

but you're going to believe that I'm myself or a version of myself in this predicament, you know? Yeah. Like Groucho Marx. Is Groucho Marx, like, a good actor? Yeah. He's Groucho Marx.

Yeah. But when he's performing, when he's performing in a Marks Brothers movie, you're not like, I don't really believe that he's having this conversation with Mrs. Teesdale. You know, like he sells it, you know. I saw some old interview for Caddy Shack where Chevy Chase got to a

with the reporter. That's a surprise. What did that reporter do to get on the bad side of my famously gentleman? But Ronnie Dangerfield was really, he was playing it cool. So he didn't do anything. It was nice to just see him, like, pretend like everything was okay. Yeah. Ronnie Dangerfield's dealt with worse, probably, you know?

Oh, definitely. Either in his stand-up comedy career or as a, or as in his years as like a vinyl siding salesman, whatever it was that he was doing before stand-off. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was. And I will say that, you know. Rodney Dangerfield's persona is something that he came on kind of late in life. So, like, that's a form of acting in and of itself.

Like, he's not, he's not exactly that man. I still thought it was a weird choice for Ingmar Bergman to cast him in persona, though. Okay. Oh, I don't know. No respect. Oh, boy, my psychology is melding with that of the woman that I'm taking care of on this island. Oh, no respect, no respect at all. Yeah, that's the ultimate form of no respect.

The dissolution of your psyche. Yeah. Hey, what's up, everybody? My name is Mark Gagliardi, and I host We Got This with Mark and Howl on the Maximum Fund Network. Would you like to introduce yourself as well? My name is Jesse, and I am from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hi, Jesse from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Jesse, you are our Maximum Fun member of the month.

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See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. Next up is Bert Kreischer. Burt Kreischer. So he's the star of the machine, right? Yes. He's the guy who's based off of his routine. Yeah, and I think he's always shirtless. His thing is he's always shirtless.

He's shortless. He's convincingly shirtless. I have to admit, I'm not really that familiar with his stand-up or his acting. Okay. And he's one of these, this shows you how far out of... You guys, it seemed like your sort of thing. That's why I put him on the list.

Yeah, it shows you how far out of the mainstream of comedy I am. I used to feel like when I was younger, I really knew what was going on in comedy more that I saw, I was somewhere, and I saw a commercial for like, Bert Kreischer's performing at this casino, and it's just clips of him shirtless going like, and I was like,

I have no idea who this is. I don't know what he's doing. What's his act? Apparently famous. It reminds, like, when, I think when Sebastian Minnescalco was famous, but not so famous. My wife's second favorite comedian. But not so famous that everybody in America knew him.

I remember a friend of mine going, yeah, so, I'm working on the show with this comedian. You've never heard of him. He's the biggest comedian in America and he sells out stadiums. You've never heard of him. And I was like, you're right.

I don't understand how this is possible. But that's the world we live in now. So I remember seeing a commercial for the movie for the machine and they're like based on the hit stand-up routine. And I'm like, I don't know this routine. I don't know this guy. The commercials acting like I know it. This, uh, Bert Kreischer's name came up in conversation last night.

And my friend, Because you were out to dinner with his parents, the crisis. Yeah, my friend dropped the trivia, which I may be true or false, is that he was the inspiration for the character Van Wilder. Oh. From the film of the same name, Van Wilder. He was the inspiration for Ty.

That was my question. Was that the first rise sequel, The Rise of Taj? Was that the first one that he was the absolute first one? It's never been done before that. Well, first, oh, okay. I don't know. It's like a planet of the apes probably rose,

but I can't remember whether it's before or after. Let's see what else rose. Rise of Taj was in 2006. First, I'm looking at a first movie with Rise in subtitle. Hmm. Let's see. Well, this is the full title. The Rise of Cast and the Great was from 1934.

That's not what I'm looking for. Hold on. Keep moving. I'm going to do some research on this. Yeah, yeah. Okay, next up we got another fave of the podcast, Larry the Cable Guy. You know what? He's good in those cars movies.

I don't like the cars movies, but he's given a good voice performance in those movies. Who does he play, one of the vehicles? Mater. Mater? Tomey. He plays Lary the Cable Car. That's what they should have done.

He should have been like a disused cable car that's in the middle of Radiator Springs for some reason. Yeah, that's a tiring. That would have been better. Yeah. I just realized Jeff Foxworthy made a movie, right? Yeah, the blue-collar comedy tour. No, but not that.

He probably made a movie. Oh, yeah, he was in that. What's that wrestling movie? Fox, what was it? The Fox and the Hound? No, no, the one about the... Fox Glove or whatever? Yeah, yeah.

That's him, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, here's another one. So no real opinions on Larry the Cable guy outside of his... Foxcatcher. Foxcatcher was originally called Foxworthy. And it was about him being as an Olympic wrestler. I am totally unfamiliar with Mr. the Cable.

guys stand up I mean I have seen it and don't really remember it that well but I know that he's like get her done right yeah there's a lot of done getting going on I think that's basically I think you basically get it

if you're like a catchphrase and it works you know yeah does most of the heavy lifting was he ever on WTF did he ever have I don't know I feel like maybe I don't know I would imagine but every good Every big comedian has a catchphrase.

This is get her done. Ronnie Dangerfield is get no respect. Jerry Seinfeld's was, I'll pick you up after high school. Sorry, I derailed your very good joke. Thank you. And Matt, what's your catchphrase? You have a catchphrase, right? Yeah, I'll pick you up after graduate school.

Oh, wow. Very respectful. Yeah. No, I mean, but like another guy who's doing a persona that is apparently very different than who he actually is, Larry the cable guy. Okay. Not actually a cable guy.

He's not really a cable guy, no. Doesn't know anything about fixing your cable. Next up we have Steve Martin. Steve Martin. Steve Martin. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He was in a movie called The Jerk. He was on a show called Only Murders in the Building.

Yeah. That's it. Still. That's all it. Still. In between nothing. I mean, come on. He's maybe the greatest stand-up,

and he's quite a good actor as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm going to put him, I think he's great at both. I'm going to put his standup slightly ahead of his acting, even though he's great at both, because his state, I feel like he's a very good actor, but his stand-up is, like, is genius stand-up. You know, like, I think it's just so amazing, you know.

Well, he invented a type of stand- he didn't invent the Steve Martin method of acting, but the revolutionized stand-up, I would say. That's one of those things where I feel like, yeah, they're probably younger people listening to our show. they're like, yeah, Steve Martin, you know, like I don't understand why they're saying such amazing things about a stand-up,

but, like, it really was a wildly different thing that he figured out. What was his catchphrase? Excuse me. Excuse me, I guess. Excuse me, but he didn't do it that much. But the, like, but also he's playing a character when he does stand-up, too.

Like, he's playing this character of, like, kind of idiot, showbiz, obsessive, you know, or professional Steve Martin. So, but, uh, even when I was a kid, I had to like discover his earlier stuff because when I was a kid it was when he was in like parenthood and stuff like that and like the he was not making stuff that was

incredibly hugely funny although my blue heaven came out when I was a kid and that's a really good that was an underrated I love that movie yeah yeah I haven't had a Ruegel in six weeks the shoes right the shoes are tragic because you're gonna melt all the

all the stuff in there like he's just he's so funny But the, Bernie Cooper Smith. What a coincidence. And I love that that came out of the same interviews with Henry Hill

that also let the good sell us. I think that's crazy. I think it's crazy. Okay. Now, how about Norm McDonald? It just goes to show you the same story where the tweak can be either comedy or tragedy,

the premise of the Woody Allen movie Melinda and Melinda, which is not good. I miss that one. Manishes to take that and make it seem like the most banal observation. So, uh, Norm McDonald. What about Norm McDonald, RIP? I mean, he's my favorite stand. I mean, I think it's kind of like the Rodney

Dangerfield thing where, I mean, he didn't do a lot of movies, right, but he was in dirty work. Yeah. He started in dirty work. Yeah, he was himself, right? And it was great. Yeah, I think. I'd say on SNL, which is not a movie, but on SNL, he would play different characters. You know, his Bert Reynolds is so far. funny, you know? Yeah. But he has a stand-up piece, again, amazing. Another person who was revolutionizing the form while doing it.

Yeah. And his David Letterman, huh? And is David Letterman? You like the Arliss, Paul? I used to, my brother and I would do that so much. Gondi gum. Gondi-go and then, oh, ho.

Gum, yeah, gum. Arliss. It's so many because it's taking David Letterman, and it's just boiling him down to just like two-man. Manorisms, three mannerisms, you know. So, we've talked a lot about actors. I will say, I'll say this, I'll say this, I've been watching a lot. They put up a lot of old lettermen from before I was watching him on YouTube.

That was a really funny show. Back in the early days. It's really good. I mean, speaking of people who revolutionized things. Yeah, say what you will about his employee management techniques, which I do not approve of or condone. That's a good show. His, yeah. Yeah, his early stuff really, like, was a whole.

whole new way of doing that kind of show. When he wasn't tired of doing that show, it was a very funny show, yeah. I actually read that Letterman book that came out, and he was not really the driving force behind the absurdity. It was Merrill Marco, right? It was Merrill Marco. He just wanted to be more of a traditional Johnny Carson-style host, which I was like, oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah, it is very much a, like Merle Marco was such an important factor in that show. Yeah. She's so funny. She's great. And he, I mean, I feel like he always had this kind of air of like not buying into the absurd stuff a little bit. And that worked great. Yeah, a little bit like looking at the audience. Maybe that's the obvious thing. No, no, but I think, but no, but it's true.

To a, to do a show where the show is doing crazy things, but he is like, all right, let's see if this is going to work. I don't know if it's going. He has that wry, ironic kind of distance to his own show. it works is really funny, you know. Yeah, as if he hadn't planned it himself. As if he didn't know what was going to happen. Yeah, exactly. By the way, David Letterman,

I can only think of one acting role, but it was great in Cabin Boy. I think that's the only one I can think of also. Yeah, yeah. But it was really good. I mean, again, he's just kind of... He did, I guess. He's doing his thing, but he's doing it.

It's funny. It's one of the funniest parts of Cabin Boy. Oh, definitely. I couldn't actually finish it, but, yeah, they front-loaded it with that great performance. I have some affection for Cabin Boy. I think there's some funny stuff in there. But I love Chris Elliott.

So I was so like, I was so like Get Life pilled at that point. Oh, yeah. That was like anything. Like I was at my local video store waiting for Cabin Boy to arrive in VHS. I've been watching some of Get a Life because it just showed up on To Be recently. And like I still find it funny because I remember how I found it funny the first time. But it is also really weird to think like, okay, this was like so revolutionary at the time. so strange.

And now it's like any number of things that's on TV only a lot slower. But at the time, amazing. At the time, no one was making a show like that, yeah. It feels like one of those things

that came out and the amount of people who actually watched it compared to the actual footprint it had in the creative community is pretty different because the not that many people watched it, but the people who watched it

are, you know, like, went on to be like... It's the Sex Pistols concert or Velvet underground, you know, album of television comedy. Yeah, in that way. So we've talked a little bit about movies and we've talked a little bit about stand-up comedy. Do you guys have any movies about stand-up comedy or stand-up comedy performances that are

viewable on the internet that you would recommend to our listeners that represents an example of good stand-up comedy or some of your fathes? Well, I hear Matt Koff has a special. Well, obviously, this is a great opportunity. A great example of stand-up comedy. Oh, I forgot about that. I've heard a lot of buzz about him. Funniest comic in New York, he was called.

So I think I'm only missing two, I think our audience only needs two pieces of information. What is the special called and where can they watch it? Yeah. Great question, Elliot. Well, it's called Catman. I'm the Catman. Okay. And it's going to be premiering on the text.

He's the cat man. Wait, let him. We have stepped on part of the information. Yeah, but he should have. He shouldn't have said, I'm the cat man. Of course, I'm going to launch it to the novelty hit. I'm the scat-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. That was the risk I was willing to take.

Yeah, it's available on Veeps, the Veeps service. I think that's just for vice presidents, though. I don't know I can watch that. So what is VEPS? Well, I believe that you have a chance being the vice president someday. I believe I'm going to need more information about how to find it than I thought I was going to. This is an app you downloaded to the website. It's like a live music app primarily, but they have great acts.

They have Eugene Merman just a debut special, Eddie Pettito and a lot of funny folks. So, yeah, it's going to be premiering on there, and you can get a ticket. They call it a ticket. It debuts on March 10th at 8 p.m. And it's $10. It's a very artist-friendly platform, so most of the money actually goes to me, which is great because I self-produced the special. I mean, I don't like that aspect.

of it. I was hoping most of the money would go to Veepes. Yeah. I can, if you want me to Venmo them, that would be wonderful. That'd be great, yeah. $6.00. For my ticket specifically. Just for my, yeah. Just in the memo right, Elliot's ticket. Yeah. Dan, you're at the live taping. I was at the taping. So there's a chance you'll hear Dan.

I'm the world's biggest classic Gaffa. Oh, you will. You will hear Dan Gaffi. I'm the world's biggest Matt Koff stand-up fan. Yes. He's been a loyal supporter all the way from my album. Pre-COVID. He was a lot of the world. He was there in the audience. Yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, you can hear my laugh on that too. Yeah, very pronounced laugh. But yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a great, great time. I shot at the Village Underground, comedy seller. Yeah, the link that everyone should remember

to actually see it is Veeps. dot events slash Matt Koff. M-A-T-K-O-F. Yeah, two Fs. And that'll be, yeah, that'll be, the show notes, I'm sure. What if we both had said F when you pointed at us?

Then there would be one extra. Too many Fs. And that's it for my career. I'll never be a Kung Fu star now. Yeah, that one. Your name will never be Dolomite. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm very proud of it.

A lot of daily show people worked on it for a very affordable rate. That's what the listeners are looking for. You guys like bargains. You're going to love this comedy's. special. No, yeah. A lot of talent went into this thing. Looks great.

Sounds great. I think it's funny. There's a lot of, as someone who has seen Matt perform several times, there's a lot of material I had never seen before. Which is, I'm always happy to see that, like, someone's working and, like, turning over their stuff

and always, like, grinding. Matt is very devoted to, I think, always writing. He's always on grinder, yeah. Yeah. I never miss a moment to be on Grindr. Oh, man, he's just full of catchphrases. You can also find me on Grindr. Yeah.

Yeah. How much does your special cost there? It's free. But there is a suggested donation. I'm super excited about it. A hand job. What? That Matt Koff is a, if you've never seen this coming before, he's hilarious.

And you should go to get Veeps and then buy a ticket for it. And then you should watch it. Veeps. Yeah, it's I think you should. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Wow. And if you make a mistake and watch VEP, that's also a good show, but it won't help.

It won't help Matt Kopp, yeah. So, you know, try and rectify it. Although I'm a big fan of Vee. Yeah, you could go back in time and work on VEP. Yeah. You could do that. That's true. You could do that. You could do that.

I like to keep my absence open. Well, except for you can't go back in time. But if you could, you could do that. If you could, you could. Yeah, exactly. In a couple of days, we'll ask Matt how's going back. You're planning to go back in time going. He's like, it's not going bad.

Yeah. Still got all my limbs. Still got shelter. To paraphrase, to paraphrase that famous philosopher, the poster for Cool World. If Matt Koff could, Matt Koff would. Yeah. Before we go, I don't want to take away from sponsoring Matt, but I came up with a question, I came up with an answer to your question, Stuart, about another comedian performance.

I mentioned one of my favorite all-time stand-up comedian. and Stephen Wright, his voiceover performance as the radio announcer in Reservoir Dogs, I think adds immensely to that movie. And he's just kind of doing what he does. But I believe in that movie that he's a radio DJ. So, you know, I guess that works as acting. Yeah. Perfect. And obviously, I'm going to say George Carlin and Bill and Ted's excellent adventure.

Yes. Oh, yeah. Rufus. I thought Rodney Dangerfield was very convincing in Rover Dangerfield. He looks like a dog, right? He looks like a dog the whole time. He sits on the sidewalk. Does he?

That's his thing, right? Am I think of the right Rodney Dangerfield? Maybe that's why he gets no respect. Yeah. Use a toilet. That's some self-respect first. That's how you get respect. Well, this has been a treat.

Thank you so much for talking stand-up comedy and movies with me. I've been Stuart Wellington, joining me are... Tam McCoy. I was going to say my name, but I thought Matt was going to jump in and snake the opportunity from me again. I'm L.E.K. Latcoth. And this is a mini episode of the Flop House. We're part of the Max Fun Network.

A lot of great shows there. And we are produced by producer Alexander Smith, who goes by Howell Doughty on the Internet. He does great work. So thank you so much for joining us. Bye. Bye. Maximum Fun.

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