Craft talk for funny public lives.
Good One treats celebrity interviews as craft conversations, using a guest’s specific credits or turning points to get at the work underneath. The result is warm, funny, and unusually interested in what changes when public performers keep going.
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Good One is an interview show about performance as work, not performance as magic. Its strongest episodes start with something concrete: a role, a special, a match, a prank, a book, a scene, a public reinvention. Then the conversation starts asking what that thing cost and what it revealed. The show is especially fluent in comedy, but it does not treat comedy as a small room. Wrestling character work, drag persona, food television, late-night hosting, sitcom acting, drama dialogue, and stand-up trauma all sit inside the same broad question of how people build a public self. The tone is casual without being careless. Guests are allowed to wander, contradict themselves, joke around, and remember odd details before the conversation tightens again around craft. Becky Lynch’s discussion of kayfabe and WrestleMania becomes a way to talk about character and fame. Bryan Cranston’s stories from acting open into timing, improvisation, and the weirdness of a working life. Chelsea Handler’s career becomes a study in bravado, therapy, burnout, and returning to stand-up with a different relationship to work. Eric André’s prank talk puts chaos beside planning. John Slattery’s Mad Men memories turn funny dialogue into a question about defense mechanisms. Taylor Tomlinson’s reflections on religion and stand-up bring anger, shame, and artistic evolution into the same room. Padma Lakshmi’s food-world stories connect taste, authority, and the desire to build something lasting. Bob the Drag Queen’s episode considers drag, persona, negativity, clothes, and the gap between dressing up and inventing a character. The show is not tidy in a press-junket way. It likes the stray aside because stray asides often expose the real subject. Good One is best when a guest’s polished public story gives way to a more useful answer: what changed, what still hurts, what got funnier, and what the work now demands.
Made for: For listeners who care about comedy, performance, and culture beyond the headline credit. It especially suits people who like interviews that move from anecdotes into craft, identity, ambition, and failure.
What sets it apart: Good One has a critic’s specificity without losing the looseness of a real conversation. It uses career details as pressure points, turning familiar guests into sharper studies of how public performance is built.
Good One is a longform celebrity interview show that explores the creative process with a sense of humor and a great selection of hats. It's hosted by Jesse David Fox, who is a Vulture senior writer and the author of Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture and the Magic that Makes it Work. Good One is a co-production of Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Check out Good One on Youtube
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Jesse David Fox makes comedy's creative choices, career pressures, and shifting performance culture legible through precise interviews with working performers.
Good One treats comedy as both an artwork and a livelihood. Jesse David Fox uses extended interviews to connect choices made onstage with the pressures surrounding them, from public perception and personal history to changing career economics.
A joke lands; Jesse David Fox makes you stay for what it costs to keep making jokes.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded craft conversation about wit, timing, and how dialogue can hide damage.
John Slattery gives the conversation its center of gravity. His feel for dialogue is the part that sticks, especially in Roger Sterling, who can land as funny, casual, and a little bruised in the same breath.
A sharp, candid conversation about how shame and craft shape Tomlinson's voice.
Jesse David Fox guides a conversation with Taylor Tomlinson toward the roots of her material, tracing the line from a sheltered, conservative upbringing to the religion jokes and shame that keep resurfacing in her comedy.
A sharp conversation about drag, comedy craft, and the line between persona and self.
The episode uses Jesse David Fox's conversation with Bob the Drag Queen to ask a clean craft question: what is a drag queen doing when the job is part performance, part persona, and part stage craft?
A sharp sketch-comedy conversation about keeping a political impression alive without flattening it.
James Austin Johnson spends this Good One appearance on the craft of keeping a Trump impression useful inside SNL's live churn. Jesse David Fox keeps the attention on process: rehearsal habits, the appeal of sketches that stay open to the moment, and the value of letting a…
A clear-eyed conversation about comedy labor, shrinking opportunity, and the scramble for a livable path.
Chris Gethard talks about how hard it is for comedians and other creative workers to make a living now. The money is thinner, the costs keep climbing, and even a small break can feel harder to reach.
A sharp conversation about stand-up that keeps its focus on craft and the choices a special makes.
Jesse David Fox and Catherine Van Arendonk approach the special with real attention to how it is built, not just what it jokes about. They move from shape and theme into marriage, helplessness, codependency, and the strain of following a big previous outing.
A sharp conversation about public image, misread identity, and the work of reclaiming both.
Kumail Nanjiani's conversation keeps circling the gap between the man he describes and the public version that hardened around him. The strongest stretch is when he talks about stepping back for a while, then watching his body change become a fixed story in other people's heads.
A loose, smart comedy conversation about craft, timing, and what survives in performance.
Patton Oswalt talks with Jesse David Fox about AI, nerd culture, a new stand-up album, and the stubborn life of a joke about the KFC Famous Bowl.
Joe Rogan's marathon one-on-one talks, from UFC judging debates to Bob Lazar's UFO claims.
Kate Langbroek's long-form interviews with Australian public figures about the moment things cracked open.
Joe Lipsett and Trace Thurman find queer subtext in everything from Anaconda to The Mummy.
Hollywood radio drama, one curtain at a time.
Becky Lynch discusses her career, WrestleMania moments, and the evolution of women's wrestling in WWE.
Bryan Cranston discusses his role on 'Malcolm in the Middle' revival, 'Breaking Bad', and a recent filming experience in Venice with Seth Rogen.
Jesse David Fox, senior writer at Vulture and author of Comedy Book, makes the case to Chelsea Handler that she is one of the five to ten most influential comedians of the 21st century, alongside Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan, and Maria Bamford.
Jesse David Fox interviews actor John Slattery about his career, including his role in Mad Men, his new Netflix series Vladimir, and stories about working with icons like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Redford.
Jesse David Fox interviews comedian Taylor Tomlinson about her rapid rise in stand-up, her experience hosting After Midnight, and how trauma from her mother's death and religious upbringing has shaped her comedy and work ethic.
Padma Lakshmi discusses her evolution from being perceived as a model and TV host to taking control of her narrative through stand-up comedy, memoir writing, and her new show America's Culinary Cup.
Good One host Jesse David Fox interviews Bob the Drag Queen about his career trajectory from New York City drag performer to Broadway star, RuPaul's Drag Race winner, stand-up comedian, and opener for Madonna on tour.
Greg Davies and Alex Horne discuss the comedy competition show Taskmaster, its international success, and the challenges of hosting and creating tasks for comedians.
Host Jesse David Fox explores why comedies rarely win Best Picture at the Oscars with guests Griffin Newman and Alison Wilmore.
Ali Siddiq discusses his approach to storytelling, his Domino Effect series, and releasing comedy specials independently on YouTube.
Jesse David Fox interviews Beck Bennett about his reputation as the nicest person at SNL and discusses burnout and boundaries.
Good One host Jesse David Fox interviews James Austin Johnson, the Saturday Night Live cast member whose viral Donald Trump impression, distinguished by absurdist tangents about pop culture minutia, earned him a spot on the show in 2021.
Jesse David Fox interviews comedian Chris Gethard about the decline of middle-class comedy careers due to tech overreach and industry consolidation.
Good One host Jesse David Fox and Vulture critic Catherine Van Aredonk present their annual end-of-year list of the best stand-up specials, discussing ten specials in depth and several more in passing.
Vulture's Jesse David Fox interviews Kumail Nanjiani about his stand-up special Night Thoughts, his first in twelve years, releasing on Hulu on December 19th.
Adam Pally sits down with Jesse David Fox on Good One to discuss his new HBO special, An Intimate Evening with Adam Pally, and what drove him to create it.
Host Jesse David Fox interviews comedian Patton Oswalt about his new stand-up album, AI, and the state of nerd culture.
Jesse David Fox interviews comedian and actress Janelle James about her role as Ava on Abbott Elementary, now in its fifth season.
Jesse David Fox interviews Vince Staples about his Netflix show, exploring its unique comedic style and philosophical depth.
Comedian Jay Jurden sits down with Vulture's Jesse David Fox to discuss his first stand-up special Yes Ma'am on Hulu, his late start in comedy at age 28, and why he believes the stand-up industry has become flooded with people chasing algorithmic shortcuts instead of developing craft.
Leslie Jones joins Jesse David Fox to discuss her new stand-up special 'Life Part 2', her time on SNL, and her comedic philosophy.
Jesse David Fox interviews Stavros Halkias about his transition from podcasting to a major role in Yorgos Lanthimos's film 'Begonia'.
Phoebe Robinson discusses her new YouTube special and her journey from being a 'girl boss' to a more peaceful place in her career.
Jesse David Fox and Jay Jurden discuss the controversy surrounding comedians performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival in Saudi Arabia, criticizing the decision as hypocritical for free speech advocates.
Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig reunite at Vulture Festival to discuss the 10-year anniversary of their film Skeleton Twins and their friendship from SNL.