Comedy craft, Japan, and unfinished arguments.
Talk Funny Nagoyacomedy treats comedy in Japan as a working room, not a polished showcase. Mark Bailey and regular conversation partners trade stories about open mics, timing, plagiarism, teaching, callbacks, and the tiny rules that make performance spaces ridiculous.
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Talk Funny Nagoyacomedy is comedy banter from the working edge of Japan’s stand-up scene. It is not arranged like a neat interview show. It behaves more like a room full of comics after the booked time has technically ended. Mark Bailey appears at the center of the recent episodes, sometimes flying solo and often talking with Steve Howard or Mike Miller. The subjects are practical, petty, and weirdly revealing. Open mic slots get measured by the minute. Reels matter because bookers need proof that a performer has material. Venue rules matter because the bar, the local rules, and the clock can all become part of the joke. Plagiarism is treated as both a craft crime and a comic embarrassment. Teaching stories slip in naturally, especially when classroom bureaucracy and student expectations start to look like another kind of stage management. The show also carries a heavy load of comedy memory. Gilbert Gottfried, Abbott and Costello, Rita Rudner, Mitch Hedberg, Sarah Silverman, Nikki Glaser, Saturday Night Live, Blackadder, and Hunter S. Thompson all surface as reference points, not museum pieces. They are used as evidence in arguments about timing, originality, persona, and who actually gets a joke. Japan is not presented as a postcard backdrop. It is a daily operating system of trains, schools, prefectural rules, language confusion, bars, and comedy nights. The pacing can be abrupt. A complaint about MC work can become a Tonight Show comparison, then a warning about timing a closer. A callback episode can pause to explain old lore while also mocking the need for explanations. That is part of the appeal. Talk Funny Nagoyacomedy is for listeners who like comedy discussed from the inside, with irritation left intact and digressions treated as the point, not a failure of structure.
Made for: Best for stand-up fans who like inside-baseball comedy talk, Japan stories, callback-heavy banter, and blunt opinions about open mics, timing, audiences, and originality.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating local comedy logistics as comic material: MC duties, reels, venue contracts, classroom habits, and old bits all become part of the same running argument.
Join Mark Bailey and comics from all over, on Talk Funny, a show about comedians in Japan from all over the world, working in comedy in Japan, writing comedy,working, doing standup and getting paid in comedy in Japan. Brought to you by Nagoyacomedy.com and Nagoyaradio.com and Mark Bailey, an author, comedy writer, stand up comedian and international dj on FM, AM and Internet radio, along with other working stand up comics and authors in Japan
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A loose alphabetical tour through Talk Funny callbacks, with Niagara Falls as its recurring comedy landmark.
Talk Funny's Episode 308 treats the show's running jokes as shared history, with Mark Bailey and Mike Miller giving the lore an alphabetical shape for anyone who has not caught every callback.
A Family Mart grudge opens into a loose, detail-rich run through convenience stores and McDonald's breakfast rules.
Family Mart complaints give Mark Bailey and Mike Miller a sturdy comic spine, as Bailey's list of places he can no longer shop turns into its own little universe, including a second list for Family Marts that suck.
A loose comedy conversation turns repeated premises and Larry David lore into its own comic material.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller turn a comedy chat into a running argument about repetition, surprise, and the visible machinery of a joke. Bailey's admiration for Nate Bergazzi's layered writing opens into a looser look at Chris Rock's repeated premises, then moves toward Larry…
True crime, live chaos, loose deductions.
Fast rants, sharp detours, zero polish.
Fast riffs, bad theories, no tidy landing.
Comedian friendship at full argument speed.
Queer overanalysis, weaponized for jokes.
Comedians Mark Bailey and Mike Miller rant about the frustrating experience of entering names on Japanese websites.
Talk Funny Episode 259 follows Mark Bailey and Mike Miller through a multi-part saga of Mark's escalating run-ins at various Family Mart convenience stores in Nagoya — being scolded for spitting outside, an umbrella dispute, a Family Mart that burned down, and finally being passed over in line by a clerk who served a loitering Japanese man instead.
Comedians Mark Bailey and Mike Miller record Talk Funny Episode 257 from Nagoya, Japan, covering comedy craft, Saturday Night Live's writers' room, and how Joe Rogan has replaced SNL as the primary career-launching platform for comics.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller discuss Colin Quinn's new Netflix special and why they found it unwatchable.
Mark Bailey describes being attacked by students and his boss suggesting he kick them in the crotch.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller discuss the movie 'Fall' and its plot holes.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller discuss petty complaints from Japanese teachers about foreigners, including a complaint about a marker speck on a whiteboard.
Mark Bailey recounts how his producer Hiroko, nicknamed "Hazel" after the 1950s sitcom, left Metallica's Lars and James Hetfield buying vending-machine coffee at Radio Eye.
Mark Bailey and Steve Howard discuss teaching in Japan and the humorous challenges of remembering student names.
Comedians Mark Bailey and Steve Howard discuss MC horror stories, including a disastrous show with a folk singer audience.
Comedians Mark Bailey and Steve Howard chat about honesty, storytelling, and politics in a lighthearted podcast episode.
Mark Bailey rants about club DJs and calls out a comedian for stealing jokes at an open mic.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller discuss Gilbert Godfrey's early career and comedy scene dynamics.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller examine the controversy around Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K., Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, and other comedians performing at a Riyadh festival organized by Saudi Arabia.
Mark Bailey argues that a guitar-store clerk lost decades of potential sales by ignoring one customer for seven seconds.
Talk Funny Episode 308 is a dedicated callback episode in which Mark Bailey and Mike Miller explain every recurring in-joke and inside reference used throughout the podcast's 307 prior episodes, from 'April Cash' (a bar owner who refused to pay the comedy crew) to Goodfellas lines, Columbo impressions, and bicycle stops by Japanese police.
Mark Bailey and Mike Miller discuss the evolution of female comedians and the humor of heroin.