Comedy Interviews Podcasts

Partway through a call on Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People, a conversation about a graduate's five jobs in two years stops on a single word, "prestigious," and on how hard a New Jersey–New York accent hits the G. Almost nobody else would hear it, they think. When a comedy interview works, it sounds like this: someone listens closely enough to catch the small detail, the catch becomes the joke, and the joke loosens the other person into saying more.

Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People is real life with the names removed. Everything is Alive goes the other direction: it is an unscripted interview show whose subjects include inanimate objects, and the comedy comes from how plain the questions are. In Louis, Can of Cola, a store-brand cola admits "I've been called the best of the worst," dreads being pulled from the fridge in the night, and drifts into the story of a radioactive 1920s drink that had a bottle listed on eBay. Miriam and Peter, Playing Cards turns rank into a marriage comedy, since one card outranks the other "by a lot." Along the way it explains why the ace of spades was tied to tax.

Over My Dead Body applies the fantasy-guest idea to a full talk show. Its creator, Steven Kunes, hosts interviews with the famous dead and takes calls. In Walter Cronkite: "And That's The Way It Is!", a caller from the journalism school named after Cronkite gets on the line, and the respectful biography keeps tipping into crude one-liners and jokes about current politics. Hear all of it as a writer's performance of a legend, never as anything the real Cronkite said.

For listeners who want to learn something between laughs, You're Dead to Me pairs Greg Jenner with a comedian and a historian. The comedian guesses, the historian corrects, and the space between them is where the fun happens. In Medieval Irish Folklore (Radio Edit), the panel settles on fairies as "waist-height, but fierce." Then Dr Gillian Kenny's subject turns to changelings and butter witches. History of Spices: commerce, colonialism and culinary innovation lets a joke carry a real argument when the Christmas-market smell of nutmeg and cinnamon gets recast as "just the smell of violent colonialism."

The most familiar comedy interview is the weekly hang with a guest, and it should be judged on momentum. Stop Podcasting Yourself, hosted by Graham Clark and Dave Shumka with weekly guests, folds the guest into the riff instead of sitting them down for questions. In Episode 943 - Alistair Ogden, a "get to know us" quiz about a campus pizza place sits beside disbelief at the price of a garden hose. Episode 940 - Gina Harms moves through buskers, a plaza under construction and an "overheard" from a grocery checkout. Fans of this unhurried style can go further on the Conversational Comedy page.

Cyrus Says brings film guests into a looser urban Indian conversation. The story behind 'Tanvi the great' | ft.Anupam Kher & Shubhangi Dutt lingers on a story about a child who handed over a toffee with the instruction not to eat it, and the toffee stayed in a refrigerator for 15, 20 years. Keep It! is anchored by Louis Fertel, who talks awards and premieres with guests. In Coachella & Euphoria Season Premiere with Paul Walter Hauser and Ivy Wolk, a guest recalls catching himself watching Ed Harris on a first film set when he should have been acting. The Pop Culture Comedy page covers more of this territory.

Some shows treat the guest as one more voice in a crowded room. In Where's Wallo: Kaash Paige, on Million Dollaz Worth of Game, Kaash Paige describes a would-be dealmaker who asked for 20% of her masters as a finder's fee. That is her account, and it sits beside long talk about faith and outgrowing old habits. The Read's The Secret Files of a Scorned Lover puts a celebration of a janitor-turned-anesthesiology story early in the episode. Later it answers a listener letter with the advice to see a therapist before setting a wedding date. Expect explicit language at these tables.

Morning radio adds the audience. In Wednesday, March 25: Amputee Cornhole Pro, 18-Year-Old Sophia vs. AJ in Rock Trivia, Chaz and AJ In The Morning puts a teenage classic-rock fan, entered by her mom, up against AJ while people put dollars on the result. The Morning Shows and Radio Comedy pages pick up from there.

Schwarz & Rubey features Austrian actors Simon Schwarz and Manuel Rubey. In Nachschwitzen I 96, the pair talk about humour as a learned protective mechanism, then about the old cliché of the sad comedian, with Charlie Chaplin as an example. Kaulitz Hills - Senf aus Hollywood gives Bill and Tom Kaulitz the same sibling licence. In Worst Case Bill Kaulitz, talk of cluster-headache attacks and triptans drifts into marvelling at how quickly skin heals. For more in any language, start from the Comedy category guide.