If you heard Jimmy Kimmel‘s knock-out “past your jail time” Trump joke at this year’s Oscars, you’re already familiar with the work of standup comedian, author, and TV comedy writer Jesse Joyce.
Joyce got his start in late night at Comedy Central’s @midnight, where he worked as a staff writer through the majority of the show’s four-year run. When @midnight ended in 2017, Joyce made the jump to Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he continues to write on average 60 jokes a day. (Of those, he says 2-3 will typically end up on the air.)
This week on Inside Late Night, Joyce walks Mark Malkoff through a typical day at Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and describes how it differs from his work on other shows. He also talks working the Comedy Central Roasts (where he began writing for Greg Giraldo back in 2007), The Oscars (with both Kimmel and Seth MacFarlane), and Robert Smigel‘s 2016 Triumph the Insult Comic Dog election-themed Hulu series.
Click the embed below to listen now, or find Inside Late Night on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Jesse Joyce’s debut book, the 2023 Scribd original “Killing The Guys Who Killed The Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett” is available for free with a trial subscription to Scribd. Visit his website or Instagram for upcoming standup dates and more.
Show Transcript
Mark Malkoff: Jesse Joyce, thanks for talking with us.
Jesse Joyce: Hey, how are you?
I’m good, man. I haven’t seen you since Astoria. They would do all… I’m not a stand up, but they would do these, you know, Tony Deyo, Andy Hendrickson, everyone would get together. And that’s where I think I first met you, but those were always fun. I was invited to a bunch of those.
Yeah.
And you, you left us, you are not coming back to Astoria anytime soon. LA got you and you’re. You’re there forever, pretty much.
Yeah, yeah, I was pretty staunchly opposed to the idea of moving out here for a long time. Like, I, there’s lots of podcasts that are out there of me talking L. A. You know, like, I, I for years did that. And then, and then now I, I love it. Uh, Andy Hendrickson lives out here too now. Like, there’s a whole bunch of former Astorians
Slowly. We still have a few people here, but, um, it happens. I’m going to guess that you are probably the only person that I can think of that’s a Kimmel writer that didn’t have to do a packet. There’s no way they made you do a packet. Did they?
I think I did. I think I did, but it felt, but I was like, kind of recruited in a way. So like, uh, so I, I still did have to do the packet for sure.
I’m surprised that, that you did it just because you were so in demand and so acclaimed at the time from doing the roast. I know that, um, sometimes people like yourself are humble and stuff, but in terms of the roasts, I’ve talked to people that have worked on them. You are, I feel like the Robert Smigel, Jim Downey at SNL, like equivalent, like there’s pretty much no, no, not many people. I can’t think of like a number two or number three on those so you you’re going into this and you’re in demand. Is that fair to say?
Well, I don’t, I mean, I guess what I can, I have somehow cobbled together a reputation as a decent writer. I mean, the nice thing is up to this. I’ve somehow cobbled together a career here without really having to like, you know, just kind of going from a job to another job, which is nice because I’m aware of how bleak it is out there right now at the moment. So the nice thing is that, yeah, like kind of like when a job ends, somebody kind of tends to offer me something to do, which is nice, and I hope that continues.
So you get, you get to Kimmel in 2017. It’s different than any late-night show I know in the fact that normally it’s a group of writers that do only monologue. And that only do sketch comedy bits, and they’re divided, but it’s not like that where you work, correct?
No, no, everybody does everything, which, like, oh, the writers, you could just, yeah, which I like better, like, I think that it would be, I don’t know, I’ve never done it the other way, but, like, I feel like it might be limiting to kind of, like, box you into, You are on the bit team or you are on the monologue team, you know, like I, I like the fact that every morning we can kind of pitch whatever, you know? And so you get the opportunity to like work on all kinds of stuff. So I think it’s, it’s good. I think it helps, you know, whatever. It gives you skills for down the road too, where it’s like, Oh, like I’ve produced my own bits. I’ve sat in the edit bay and done those, you know, like, and then also just, yeah, like jokes are something I’ve done for years. Like I can do that too, you know? So.
That’s rare, like, Conan, um, and I think some, maybe, um, one other show, you, you were able to produce your own bits at Kimmel, like, do you get to direct them? Cause I know that some of the late night shows, um, are not like that, not even They separate those.
Yeah, I think that the, I, I, it might have been slightly before my time, but I think they experimented with trying both, but everybody seems to like the freedom of being able to kind of pitch either in the morning, you know?
Some of my friends that work on those shows will show up at, you know, 10 o’clock or whatever for a day, but you have to start really early. Is that correct for Kimmel? Cause I got to interview him, uh, one time with someone else and I was asking him some questions and it’s I think he, didn’t he say that he got everything from the writers by like 7am maybe or 8am?
Yeah, like, well, not that, yeah, we started, we start at 7 a.m., right? So, that, that was the biggest adjustment from anything else I’d ever done to come in here was to, uh, learn how to train myself to roll out of bed at 6:50 and start being funny at 7, you know what I mean? Like, to basically just begin cranking out jokes at dawn, which I never, it’s like, it’s a specific skill that I don’t know that you would, necessarily have to learn any of the other type of comedy. But yeah, so we have like from seven to basically nine. So like, uh, kind of a two hour window in the morning that we get up and we write the monologue stuff from home, right? And that’s where you would then, you know, we get a bunch of topics. There’s somebody who has like a much worse job than we do, who, uh, they’re up at like three in the morning going through the news, you know, and they cull together a packet for us that we get at like seven. Uh, that lands at our, in our inbox and we basically have from seven to nine to just sit there in your jammies. And chug coffee and write jokes and pitch bits for the day or the future. And then basically once you turn those in at nine, Jimmy goes through them and he picks all the stuff he wants to do. And then you have to show up for a rehearsal. It’s like at like 11, 11:30. And then that’s when we go, that’s, he’s already picked all the jokes he wants to do. And the, and so now you basically have what your day’s going to be, for the most part, based on how that has worked itself out.
And then from 8 o’clock, then when you email until, um, or 9 o’clock until 1130, you don’t have to do anything during that time?
Uh, well it depends. If you, like, yeah, a lot of times, yes, that’s when you can, like, you know, kind of, uh, take a shower, get ready to go, maybe start working on some, a lot of times we get assignments that are like, these are due at rehearsal, then, like some follow up thing. Based on what he has picked or not picked, he might say like, “I like this area, but we need like,” he, he doesn’t like the punchline to this joke, but he likes to set up to it. So everybody kind of pitch out another version of that, that kind of thing. And then if you did get a bit picked, they kind of start pestering you immediately with, uh, all kinds of details about what they need to get that together, you know?
So is there one or two people that are, um, that get the most in the monologue. It seems like at every show that I’ve talked to some, there’s usually maybe 1 or 2 people that have significantly or noticeably a little bit more maybe than others. Is there someone like that on your show?
I don’t think so. I’m not trying to be like, uh, gracious. I just think that everybody is solid, you know, like, so… There are some people who, just over the years it’s shaken out, they’re less likely to pitch bits, you know, they’re more like, uh, solid joke writers, you know, uh, than others, and then there are other people who are constantly pitching bits or like, you know, like little live bits with the audience or, you know, that kind of stuff, uh, and they might do fewer jokes, but yeah, for the most part, I think it’s a pretty even team, you know,
When you wake up and you have the two hours, is there any panic or is it one of those things? Like somebody that goes to the gym every day? You just get used to it. You wake up. You make the doughnuts, you hand it in, what is that like for you?
Yeah, I mean that’s what I mean about, I guess, how like, you just kind of have to have, you have to train yourself to get used to being funny seconds after you wake up, you know? Like, that’s the hard part. But like, there are days where you’ll, like, there are some days where the packet is just like, “Ugh, man, like, I don’t know, like, none of these topics particularly speak to me,” and, but then you can, you know, That’s what you just like, I can just force out jokes here because that’s what my job is and that’s what I do. And then, ironically, like, there’s days where you’re like, I absolutely nailed this packet. Like, every one of these was so deeply in my wheelhouse, like, I could write 50 jokes about each of these. And then, like, on a day like that, you get three picked, and on a day where you’re like, I don’t give a sh*t about any of this, like, that’s when you, like, really, you get, like, a ton of stuff in the monologue, so, it just, you never know.
To your knowledge, because I’ve worked on some of these shows, is, are there any writers that, to your knowledge, will actually get up really early, like, 5 a. m., or even before, because they want more time to write? I, I know there’s some people like that, that would just rather, I don’t know, that the pressure or whatever, it just helps them, do you know, is there anyone like that on staff?
No, I think I think what I think some of the the newer people do. Like what what what does happen is the monologue is is split Our team is split in half in the sense that because there’s like 18 of us. Like that’s a lot like if everybody’s churning out Jokes that early in the morning. That’s an enormous packet of jokes to call through every morning. So a couple years ago, they decided to have the room where there’s two teams where half of us will do that– do the morning thing. The other half don’t do that, and then they will turn in a packet at the end of the day for the next day. So by that time, by the end of the day, if you’re on the that team where you’re in charge of the end of the day stuff, that we have a sense of what’s going to be in the what like some topics that will probably be in for tomorrow and so if you were, like, wanted to get a head start. You could look at those and go, okay, I know what, I know at least these three topics will be in tomorrow’s monologue, and you could get a head start writing on those at night or whatever.
Don’t the writers have a second pass then to do more jokes in the midday or is it all in the morning pretty much? Is that when it’s…
Well, surprisingly a lot of stuff that you did pitch at 7am ends up in the show, you know what I mean? Like, but like, but yes, there is for sure… The purpose of the rehearsal is not like the way I’ve, I understand it has traditionally been on other shows where they just kind of go through the monologue and everything like that. Like, we don’t do that. The rehearsal is mostly just us sitting with Jimmy and, uh, we will watch clips that there’s another job at our show called the TV watchers. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of those guys.
Yes.
That seems like an awful job too, where they, they literally just have to sit there and watch hours of Hannity and, uh, and pull moments from it or whatever, you know, like, like that or The Bachelor and find funny clips and then those then get shown at rehearsal. And from those, like, what gets a good reaction, what people laugh at, or whatever, and then, we, Jimmy picks what those clips are that will then be. And so then, after rehearsal, we go to lunch, and then we get the, the clips. These are the ones that we’re gonna do on the show, and then we write to those, we write jokes for those after that, and then, often, there will be like, a new topic, because some news has happened during the day, and we have to write jokes for that, um, or, we’re working on, this chunk is in the monologue. It needs to be punched up, that kind of stuff. So that’s kind of what the, and then there’s always assignments like going forward for future days, you know, like on Wednesday we have Oprah on the show. You know, like we need to pitch stuff for her, that kind of thing, you know?
I find it amazing. There’s very few hosts that are just calm before the show. Obviously most people get, there’s some nerves. Jimmy does not seem like that before the show. Am I correct on that?
Yeah. I mean, yeah, he doesn’t strike me as the guy who gets. You know, like, uh, stagefright or whatever, like.
No, but like, he could be chatting with you up until it goes on. Whereas a lot of people, they need that time, and I get it, as a performer. To really get that in their head space and everything. But he seems like one of those people that can just be talking and like, okay, got to go.
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, also he’s like working very hard on the monologue, like up until the last second, like, you know, like right up until like, he’s very actively writing the monologue.
If tomorrow you had to show, let’s say three or five comedy bits that you’ve written for Kimmel that you’re most proud of in front of a couple of thousand people, what would you show that you’re the most proud of that you had your name on?
I would say there’s like two things that are like, that are kind of signature, uh, things of mine that I, uh, one of them, it’s a thing I thought of years ago too, and I always thought it’d be funny, I actually pitched it for @Midnight when I worked on @Midnight long ago, and everybody thought it was funny, but we just didn’t, couldn’t get it together. And so then I repitched it when I got to Kimmel and he loved it. And it was that I wanted our show to be the first show in history to win a J. D. Power award. So that, like, every other show, like, you know what I mean? Like we have other awards. Every other show like is always touting how many Emmys they have. No, no television program has ever won a J. D. Power Award, and I wanted to be the first. And, uh, and that like, I feel like hits like a sweet spot for Jimmy, which is like, like put a lot of production value into something that’s inherently kind of like dumb and car dealership-y. You know what I mean? Like something that’s like has, that like a, like just some random midwestern hotel would brag about. Like, like that kind, whatever that comedic sensibility is, like it, that seems to, we both have or whatever. So, um So I pitched that and it turned into this big goddamn deal. And like, we really had to go through the, the, talk to J. D. I would figure out like how we could qualify, like what we could do to, to like kind of bend the English language to have it make sense that we could win a J. D. Power Award. And we did. And then the day we did, the CEO of J. D. Power came and we had a huge, enormous, like a hundred foot banner. That like dropped outside the studio that stayed up there for like eight months. And for like, you know, around that, like about eight months, if you see a clip from Kimmel, like, you know, whatever, like they’ll surface of him interviewing, like, I don’t know, magic Johnson or something. There’s a J. D. Power trophy sitting on his desk like in the background, like, and it was like so for a long time that was sitting there and it was like oh yeah I did that. So I was very proud of that and then he gave it to me, which is nice, I have it. I have the J. D. Power award so that was really cool like when the time was up and it was time to take the banner down whatever but uh so that and then I would say The Mike Lindell bits, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of those. Of course. That we do. Yeah, so there’s a guy, uh, Bryan Cook.
He’s very funny.
He’s a writer with us, and he’s a comic too, stand up, and, and, like, he and I partner up on those. He’s great. And I love those, cause they’re just like, it’s just a joke machine, it feels like The Roasted Away, right, where it’s like, You don’t have to bother with a lot of, I guess, like, with a lot of other bits, you have to kind of waste time, or, or jokes even. The, the trick of it is to make it sound like this is all conversational, you know what I mean? Like, you have to kind of Add words to just make it sound like this is coming off the top of somebody’s head. But with like Liddell is such a batsh*t psychopath that, that just everything that he blurts out goes in a different direction and can just be a very solid, sharp, crazy joke. And so they’re really fun to write. Cause it’s like, you really kind of play to the top of your intelligence by just like writing the absolute most insane sh*t you can think of, you know,
The one time I talked to Jimmy, I asked him about the studio because, you know, most of these studios, like, Colbert probably has 450 people at least, I know, um, Jimmy Fallon has at least, probably, like, maybe close to 300, and you guys only have 150 seats and for a comedian to get up like that is not have as many people is I think would be tricky, but somehow I don’t know how, if it’s the acoustics or maybe you just have really amazing audiences. It’s not an issue, which is so surprising because I’ve talked to, you know, some of the host and stuff that sometimes have played to lesser houses and stuff, and it was very hard for them.
Yeah, that’s interesting. I don’t, uh, yeah, I mean, I don’t know. I’ve done tons of 150 seat comedy clubs over the years. You know what I mean? Like, I just think that the intimacy of it works, you know? It is, it has a low ceiling, you know, kind of like, it does, it feels comedy clubby in that way, like, just like a little black box kind of a vibe.
He’s really up there into the audience, which is great when he comes out for the opening remarks, the monologue, he’s right there with the crowd, which is good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there isn’t like a bad seat, if you will, And uh, and yeah, and then after between after the monologue we stopped down or whatever and he just kind of does crowd work with the audience which is great so yeah, he’s, he’s a naturally just like super funny guy so it like it’s easy. He has a very stand up demeanor and energy to him that he could absolutely just be totally fine on stage with nothing prepared, even if he, you know what I mean?
Tell me one or two of the most surreal celebrity bits that you produced, that you made a pitch, you maybe pitched to the celebrity, uh, would you do this, and a bit that you were there for, if anything stands out.
I pitched this absurd bit where it was a news story that sheep can, it was like a scientific study of some kind that sheep can recognize celebrities. Have you ever, did you, it was some absurd, very late night feeling story, right, where like they would show, or something about, yeah, like that sheep would remember faces and they would gravitate toward celebrities or something. So The Rock was coming on who was at the time the biggest celebrity in the world. So we got The Rock and then just some random person from the audience and we got an actual sheep. And then the, the goal was to get the sheep, see which, who the sheep gravitated to. And it did the other person, which is ideal. And that’s what The Rock said beforehand, like “The way we want this bit to go, obviously, is that the sheep picks the regular person, right?” And so sure enough, it worked that way. And it was very fun.
You lucked out.
Yeah. And then, uh, I got to, I mean, getting to write for Dana Carvey when he guest hosted was a real treat, like, just personally, like, that was kind of delightful, because I’m such a big fan of his.
He’s a really nice man.
Yeah, so, uh, so that felt cool that it was like, oh, and, and Martin Short recently was guest hosted, and I got to kind of work with him, and that was, you know, so like that kind of stuff, when you get to get to work with sort of comedy heroes or whatever, that’s a pretty neat feeling, you know.
In terms of the guest hosts with non comedians, who do you think hit it out of the park? A few of them that just that were not standups, not trained comedians that just did the best that that…
Ah, that’s tough. I mean, Because really, because the people who have a background in stand up are the ones who do the best, for sure. Like, or comedy, like, like Martin Short, I thought was phenomenal. And Jiminy Glick, doing that, was great.
Who do you think the strongest guest hosts have been at Kimmel? It’s always fun when they have them, who, what’s, who stands out?
Uh, well, the combo of Martin Short and then the night he did as Jiminy Glick was, uh, Pretty magical. Uh, Kamail really nailed it. And everybody kind of universally, he only did a single night. He didn’t do a whole week because of his schedule or whatever. But like, I mean, when he came in and did it, it was just very refreshing and great. Cause it was like, Oh yeah, we can just write and do what we normally do. Like, you know, there’s no, there’s nothing off limits. He’s not, you know, and he would nail it and you didn’t have to worry about it. Cause he, and he’s a podcaster, so he could do interviews and you know what I mean? It’s noticeably different and good, when, uh, you know, somebody with a professional comedy and specifically a stand up background comes in and guest hosts, because then it’s like, ah, great, like, you don’t have to kind of explain to them how a monologue works, you know?
Jimmy Kimmel in the beginning would come out for a warm up and then he, he, Jimmy told me that Don Rickles advised him, you don’t want to do that. You want to, you want to save it. It’s like being shot out of a cannonball. The audience sees you for the first time.
Yeah.
Kind of like Johnny Carson. And that really worked for Jimmy. He said that Don Rickles was completely correct. And that’s what he does. Were there any guest hosts that did want to come up out before the show to talk to the audience? Just to have some rapport. I know I can’t imagine like Dave Letterman, uh, somebody like that. He needs to know how the audience is going to be, or maybe they just want to get them pumped up. Did anybody go out there before?
No, I don’t think so. Because with those, those shows, they feel like such a mad dash to from the morning to getting them getting a monologue solidified, because it’s and that that would be, I think, for just anybody that as that is not less to do with them being celebrities and more to do with just, you know, suddenly you’re about to host a late night talk show for the first time in your life or, you know, this is night two of the first time you’ve ever done it. So it is really, it does feel like. Right up to the last minute, getting everything in shape, you know,
it’s such a hard skill set. Dave Letterman, when he first guessed it for Carson, the very first time I know it was very nervous. It showed. Were there people that are not comedians that guest hosted that were just so visibly nervous. You were like, I don’t know how they’re going to get on stage, but then they were fine. I don’t need names or was everyone pretty calm, would you say?
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like everybody for the most part, you know, kind of, uh, They’re all big celebrities, so, you know, I think that they’re, even if they lack the confidence, I think maybe they had an ego that would save the day and go like, I can pull this off, you know?
And they have like, such good writing, um, Joan Rivers, I know that you worked with her, you did the roast, what was it like working with Miss Rivers?
It was very cool. Like I, I didn’t know what it was good actually, but like it wasn’t even on the roast. I didn’t work with her at all on the roast. I wrote on that roast, but I worked with (Greg) Giraldo on that roast. And for most of the those until Greg died, that was my only that’s who I worked with. But I did work with Joan separately on a show she did called, How’d You Get So Rich? Are you familiar with that at all?
She sent you out on the street to do, like, man on the street stuff, didn’t she?
Yeah, well, the main part of that job, which was really fun, was that. So, it was like that show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, with Robin Leach. You remember that, right?
Sure, of course.
Except, the way the tone of the Robin Leach one is that he would go to these, like, old money You know, millionaires, mansions, and then just fellate them about how amazing they are and how great their house is. Joan, the premise of that show, which I thought was really delightful, was, uh, she would go to, like, new money people. Like, people who became a millionaire for doing something weird, and then she would go to their house and just, like, make fun of how tacky it was. You know, or whatever, or, like, d*ck on them. You know, like, just, and, and it was very fun for that, cause it, it didn’t have that air of reverence to it at all. Cause it was Joan Rivers, it was quite the opposite. And so like, we went to like the, the guy who created the Hawaiian Tropic brand’s house, you know, just this like, kind of like Bob Guccione type, like he had these like tacky mud flap girls, sculptures everywhere, you know, and sh*t like that. And, and then we went to Mrs. Field’s house, the lady who makes the cookies, like she is just some self starter who started this cookie franchise. And, and, and so we went to her house and made fun of them, and whatever, like, and it was, it just had a real different vibe. And I would just sit there off camera while she. Walked around the house and interviewed and talked to them and I have like a whiteboard and write sh*t down and just kind of show it to her. And then she would like glance at it in the middle of a conversation and then punch it up in her head and spit it back out, like it was pretty amazing to see and, but she was super cool. Like I, I didn’t know it was like kind of a really early writing job for me, but she, uh, you know, whatever, we were at Mrs. Field’s house and I didn’t know, I really wasn’t on TV sets that often. And I think it was lunchtime. And I just like went and sat on the diving board at the swimming pool and just kind of like sat there by myself. It was eating a sandwich and she just came over and sat on the diving board with me. It was like, Hey, you’re a standup, right. And just started talking to me about standup and like told me some cool Richard Pryor story or whatever, you know, and it was just like, just like really a genuinely cool, neat person who cared about, who wanted to talk about standup, you know, and that was great.
Didn’t you tell me that for her roast that the one thing that was not allowed were Melissa Rivers jokes?
Yes. Yeah, that’s true.
What, can you tell me why again or how did that happen? Like, did Joan say, you know, please?
I’m sure it was her. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t know. Like, I, what I do know is that when, when we do the roasts, there’s usually like, uh, hey, these couple things are off limits, you know? And so, like, just don’t make jokes about them, you know what I mean? And it’s usually just some, reasonable sensitivity that, that the honoree has that it’s like, yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. Like we’re not going to bring up that your mom died of cancer or whatever, you know what I mean? Whatever the thing is that they’re sensitive about. If you know, like for the most part, we’ll just go like, well, yeah, sure. Appreciate you coming on and doing this, you know? But Joan’s was that don’t make fun of Melissa, but like Melissa was like a celebrity. You know what I mean? And like..
Yeah, she’s a public figure.
It’s not like a child.
I remember one of the jokes you told me you wanted to do about her and yeah, couldn’t do it.
Well, no, but I did like. I actually, I made like, so I, because I was working just with Giraldo and we wrote this joke and she, uh, got… There was like, like, oh, we can’t do it. Yeah. But Greg was more or less like, Ah, it’s really funny, let’s do it anyway. And then he did do it, and then Melissa stormed out, And then, uh, They had to, like, bring her back, Like, they had to talk her back into coming back, Cause she was sitting kind of in the front, And then she agreed to come back, only to o up on sta– If she could go up on stage. So if you watch that roast, the Melissa Rivers joke has been cut out of it, The one that Greg did, But what is there, is Melissa goes up and she just thanks everybody for coming, And then goes like, f*ck you Greg Giraldo. Like, that’s pretty much all she does. And the reason that was there was because of this joke, so. Which was, do you want me to tell you the joke?
I think I know it, but tell me.
It was that, uh, the true fact that it was based on was that, that Michael Jackson and Joan Rivers had the same plastic surgeon. And that they had actually a lot of stuff in common, that they both, uh, They’re both, uh, creepy old white ladies. They, they both, uh, are more popular now that they’re dead. And that they both raised a chimpanzee. That was the joke. And, uh, and Melissa stormed out, right? And that was the, so, anyway.
To your knowledge, did you ever, and you don’t have to mention who, did any of the people that were roasted, did they, did you ever see them shed any tears afterwards? That it just really affected them? Or not really?
No, no, I never, like, I never saw anybody, like, outright cry. Like, but, um, I don’t know, I’m trying to think, like, I think, you know, Donald Trump was a terrible sport about it. Like he was a real d*ck about it. Um, and, uh, he was the worst. I mean, like his one was the worst. So I don’t, and, and like, there’s, there’s sort of like just the, the sort of legend of that particular roast. Like there’ve been articles, like when Trump then ran for president, there were articles written about what that experience was like and everything. And like, from the top down, everybody was like, yeah, what a piece of sh*t that guy was like, like everybody. Like, the Comedy Central people and everyone was just like, Yeah, f k him. That was terrible.
How many comedians get cut out of the roast? Because I know that, um, for the Sagat roast, Norm Macdonald, they were debating cutting him. Does that actually happen? That some of the people get up and they just, they, I mean, maybe they don’t do well, or they’re, I mean, Norm, what Norm did was so…
So few people don’t do well because they, if they take our jokes and if they do what we tell them to, like, if they’re instead of that, people get cut down for sure. I think maybe Eddie Griffin might’ve gotten cut out because he just went up and riffed like the people who go up.
No material?
Every now and again, somebody will do that where they’re like, I got this. And then they just go up and they think they can just kind of wing it, which is like. Absolutely not something you can do on a roast. Like, you cannot do that.
Do you remember Nancy Walker? She was, um, kind of redhead. She was in, um, Bounty commercials and then Murder by Death. She, she was in a lot of stuff in TV and she was did a Dean Martin roast, and they cut her out because she’s like, I can, I’m fine on my own and not even a comedian and she gets up and tanks. That you would think that that would not be.
Yeah, it’s crazy that somebody like you, I think what happens, what happens more often actually is somebody will drop out at the last minute and that screws everything up. And I feel like that happens because people will agree to do it. This probably comes from the same place where somebody agrees to do it. And then they don’t bother watching one. So they don’t really know what exactly it is. And then I think the people who drop out is like one of their assistants, like the week before is like. If you actually see one of these, right. And then they show it to, it’s like, Oh, I’m not going to let them talk about my miscarriage and they, and they bail, you know, so, and then that kind of, it really blasts a giant hole right in the middle of the roast, because a lot of times you’ll have one of the sort of delightful things about a roast joke is sometimes you, you use somebody on the dais to be, like, as a, a backboard to like bounce a joke off of, to hit the other person. And then if that person’s gone, then it screws up the whole job. You know what I mean? So. So there’s a lot of, like, reconfiguring you have to do. So like everybody’s set because one person is gone, you know?
Were you in the room when Bob Saget, they did the roast, and Norm Macdonald got up and did it?
Yeah, I was, yeah.
What was that like? Because I know they edited him down some, and it was so, for certain people, I mean, they did not get it in the room. What was that energy like? I mean, it seems like one of those things where all the comedians are laughing because this is so, Norm, but…
It was, yeah, I mean, I’m a norm fan and I always was so like, I was very tickled by it. I thought it was delightful. Like, what a fun and Giraldo and I used to then talk for years about the joke he said about him, which was like, uh, I think it was something about like, uh, people say you’re going places, but not in the car you’re driving or whatever. It was just so funny. Like, it’s just so dumb. But we would talk about it all the time. And, uh, yeah, there was another one, like, you know, he’s got the face of a, and the ears of an owl, the eyes of an owl. This man’s for the birds, or whatever. Like, they were just so corny and great. And, I had, and, but what was also delightful is what his behavior during the, when he wasn’t on stage, when it wasn’t his turn, he was just sitting there reading the newspaper the whole time. Do you remember that?
That is so Norm.
If there was a joke about him, he would, like, You know, like, lower the paper and, like, frow like, you know, like, frown, and then just, like, you know, snap the newspaper back up. It was a really fun gag.
I had a day job at Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the early days, and Norm was the celebrity, uh, version, and he was reading the newspaper during the the show, and they would cut to him, and he’s like, Marmaduke, see? Funny.
I just, I, I just wrote on Who Was to be a Millionaire. So, cause Jimmy hosted, right? So..
Oh, cause, cause Jimmy was there. Yeah.
Yeah. So I was like backstage the whole time for that, but just, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this. This is a, an interesting, I don’t know how true this is. Cause I was, uh, working with Greg for that roast for the, uh, Sagat one. So I don’t have like the real inside track, but as I understand it, part of the reason that Norm did that was that it was kind of like a, a bit of a protest thing. Because, uh, that very day, Artie Lange OD’d. Did you know that? That he was supposed to be on that roast. And then, Artie was in the hospital. And, uh, so, then as I, this is what I heard. And, like, again, I don’t, I can’t verify this. But, that Norm then, who was very close to Artie, was like, Well, I can’t do it. I’m going to go hang out with Artie. And the Comedy Central, the, somebody was more or less like, No, we can’t lose two guys on the dais at once. Because I already told you, How much that janks everything up if somebody’s gone. So then if two people are gone, that would have really just knocked one of the wheels off the roast like the day of so they kind of more or less like, like, made Norm stay there. And so as I was told and I don’t know if this is true that he kind of just is like well f*ck this, and just kind of did that, you know to show his sort of You know, kind of annoyance with it or whatever.
That, that seems very Norm. What was it like working with Robert Smigel on the Triumph special? That was the election special on Hulu in 2016?
That was great. I mean, I didn’t, I did it from, uh, from like my, uh, like, uh, remotely because I had a job. So I think I was working @midnight at the time. So I wasn’t actually physically With him for most of it. I have been on past things that, that Robert has done, which is also like a pretty awesome experience because I mean, yeah, clearly I know you’re a big Smigel fan.
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. His, his, his, my favorite is just his, his ability. Um, sketch writing. I don’t. Yeah. Over to SNL and just beyond SNL. Yeah. Pretty all in awe of is work.
Oh, me too. Yeah. I mean, he’s an absolute genius. And, and I was, I got to work with him because he came in and did this absurdly stupid show called the, The Guy’s Choice Awards that used to exist in a different era. Do you know about those?
No.
It was Spike TV. Remember that TV network?
I remember Spike TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The network for dudes. You know, it was just like a, like if Axe body spray was a network. And they would do this absurd, uh, award show called The Guy’s Choice Awards. Where they would just literally reverse engineer awards. They would book, for probably a ton of money, big, tough, you know, like, just like, like “guys guys,” and then they, we’d have to come up with what award we were going to give them, you know, like, like mustache of the century, we’d give the Burt Reynolds or sh*t like that, you know what I mean? And so Smigel would come on as Triumph, and do kind of this like, uh, roundup of the year’s worst people or something like that, or you know, the year in guys, whatever the hell it was. And yeah, like, I just, I got to sit around with him and pitch jokes, and it was one of the coolest things I ever got to do. And he actually closed with my joke, which I was super happy about. Uh, and then I think that because of that, he then called me and asked if I would help him with the Triumph thing. And so that was literally just like, like Robert, there is, I feel like there’s like. At least, and I’ve written for a lot of people at this point, and I feel like there are kind of essentially two types. There’s the type who, uh, writes until, has, until like, “Yeah, we got it, this is good.” And then they move on with their life. And then there’s the other type, which is like, Write until you run out of time. Because we might get a better joke, you know?
That’s Robert, that is Robert.
That’s Robert, yeah. And so, that is just this frenetic, there is, it’s just this bottomless pit of jokes. You just keep Just firing jokes into an email address or whatever, or right up to the last minute, you’re just still like whispering jokes to him just in the, on the off chance that that might… So, which is a really kind of, it feels very like frenetic and exciting, cause you’re like, Oh sh*t, like maybe I can maybe jam a joke in at the last second kind of thing, you know? So it, it takes a lot of mental energy to do that. Like, not just cause the jokes have to be sharp, but also because it’s like, when you commit to doing that, it’s like, oh man, this is an endless job until it, until the camera’s, until action, you know?
How many jokes do you normally write for Jimmy in the morning, if you had to guess?
Well, like first pass, 30 maybe? Something like that? Some, in that first batch, you know? And then throughout the day, I’d say another 30 more, maybe, is my thought, like, you know, somewhere in that vicinity.
I was wondering about that. What was it like working @midnight? And it was great that you were on the show, you always did great.
Yeah, that was a fun show and that was really a fun show to do and I thought that was what was cool about because at the time I was still very stand up focused about getting out there myself and do a stand up so the fact that I would regularly get on the show was helpful and and that was actually an interesting thing I learned about that was antithetical to how I thought show business worked like when I was a teen or a kid watching Comedy Central and seeing people on shows and stuff. My, my assumption was always just that like, Oh, well they’re there because they’re literally the, they’re, they’re the best. They’re the most qualified person to be on this show. And then you get on @midnight and somebody drops out and they’re just like, well, hey, can you just go on? Like you realize it’s, it’s literally like a lot of these people are there because they were closest. Because they were literally just a block away. So, “You’ll do–get on the show,” you know, that kind of thing.
Yeah, it’s like Tony Randall with Johnny Carson in New York. He lived right by and be like, “Tony…”
Yeah. And, and sometimes too, like, yeah, if I’d recently done it or whatever… They would literally just like call around comics that they do that were close to the studio and bring them in the show. But, uh, but that was really fun because I, that is the first, the only show I ever worked on where the, uh, it was the direct correlation between, like, what you wrote in the morning and then what ended up on television. Was like one to one, you know, like, like Hardwick is a funny guy and had a lot of input and would, uh, but he would pick stuff, but like, if you wrote it, he would basically just kind of do it unchanged for the most part, which was kind of nice. And, and also with that show, it was like, there would be like a, like a topic would be like a chunk. And that it would spin off into like, uh, one of those fake question, like game show questions, you know? And so it would be whatever the new story would be would then you then have to at the end of it reverse engineer, like, kind of make a joke into a question and then give three options or whatever. So that chunk, you would write yourself, like we would all like in the morning go like. I’ll take that topic or whatever and then you’d go off and write that. It was either like, if your chunk got picked, then that’s like, uh, two minutes of the show is just literally, you wrote, as is, you know, like.
Yeah, that doesn’t happen.
No, and yeah, and it’s the complete opposite, like a kibble, like the, like, you know, you’re batting average, like, the number of jokes you write versus the number of stuff that gets on the air. It’s so disposable, you know what I mean? It’s like 3%, 4%, you know, at most. Like, it’s just, you’re just constantly, so it, to go from that to that, where like 98 percent of what I wrote was on TV to like 3%. It’s like, it was a real, It’s a very different dynamic, but, but still, but very cool.
What was the most surreal moment writing for the Oscars? I know that you wrote for, of course, Jimmy and then you wrote, uh, also for Seth MacFarlane. Is there a moment or maybe two that was being backstage and maybe writing during the show or…?
You know, I remember during the first one, I was still, the Seth one that I did, Seth MacFarlane year. Oh, this is funny. This is not a, uh, this isn’t, uh, has anything to do with the actual show. Well, I’ll tell you two. Uh, the one has nothing to do with the show itself, but the other one does. It was when we were writing on it, like I was still just coming from Comedy Central and whatever. And so I, I met Seth through the Sheen Roast. I wrote a bunch of jokes for him for the Charlie Sheen roast. And that’s when he started, like, asking me to help him write other sh*t, right? Everybody else was like a Family Guy dude, for the most part, except me. And so I’d meet them sometimes at Seth’s house and it was right before Christmas and we were working on the roast and I went to Seth’s house, his enormous house on the top of the hill and I had to go straight to the airport to go back to Pittsburgh to see my parents. And so I get in and I just ask Seth, I was like, “Hey man, how long does it take you to get to the airport from here?” And he goes, uh, you know, “I have no idea.” And I was liee what do you mean you have no idea? And he was like, “I’ll find out, I’ll get,” and he like went to go ask somebody. And I was so confused, I was like, “How the f*ck do you not know how long it takes to get to the airport from your house?” And one of the Family Guy guys had to explain to me that it was like, “You know, like, he has like a helicopter, like landed on his tennis court and then take him to a private plane. And then he just leaves. The plane leaves when he gets there.” Like, and I was like, “Oh my God.” Like it was just a whole other level of like rich, famous guy that I had, I didn’t know existed where it’s like his international airport is like our bus station, you know what I mean? Where it’s like, oh yeah, I kind of know where the bus station is. Like I could get you in the general direction. I don’t go there a lot, so I don’t know, you know, like, uh, so that was fascinating, but for them, for that rest, I was still a cigarette smoker at the time and, you know, cause it’s the Oscars, they just let you do whatever you want more or less or the time they did, you know. And so like, not, you couldn’t smoke backstage, but like they, you could just go down to like this one area, like off the red carpet and smoke. And people were just smoking and, like, it just so happened that my, uh, smoking menstrual cycle synced up with Robert Downey Jr.’s and, like, I just kept, every time I’d go out to have a cigarette, Robert Downey Jr. would be there having a cigarette. I’d just be like, “Hey man,” like, and I just ended up, like, being smoking buddies with Robert Downey Jr. that night. It was, like, a really surreal, cool experience. So that was neat. And then for the most recent one, I would say that the, like, the scrum where it was that mad dash to, like, come up with when Trump tweeted at us. To come up with a joke to address it. So, and, and like everybody was pitching out or whatever stuff. And, and, uh, Tony Barbieri threw out something that was that something about, uh, lights out in prison or something like that. And that made me then go like, “Oh, is it a past your jail time or whatever?” And then that ended up being the thing. And it felt like hitting a buzzer beater. It was a cool, like, cause it was really like only there was just, you know, whatever we had like a very limited window of time to try to jam something out. And so that was kind of a fun…
Are you hired, I don’t want to say as a ghostwriter, but when people have those Netflix comedy specials, there’s no way that some of them can generate a new hour as frequently as some of them do with being busy. Do some times do you ghostwrite for stuff like that?
No, like, so, stand up is uniquely a very different animal, and stand ups are very particular when it comes to that kind of stuff, and for the most part, no, it, like, there are plenty of stand ups that I write for when they have to do a TV thing.
I get that, yeah.
But, like, their act is so personal that, that that feels like it crosses a line that most people wouldn’t, wouldn’t understand. It, it depends, like, and I don’t judge anybody for doing it, but that being said, I am good friends with Jimmy Carr, and I think he’s a genius, and during the strike, he was such a kind, decent guy to me, that he was like, hey, I’ll just put you on retainer. Why don’t you just send me a couple pages of jokes a week, like stand up jokes. And I’ll just, I’ll just pay you for him just to help me out. Cause, cause we were on strike, which was, I mean, like such a cool thing to do. And so, yeah, so I basically like just churned out as much stand up material as I could for him for that. But yeah, like I feel like stand up is kind of a different animal in that.
I want to plug your book, let’s do this now. Um…
Oh sure.
You had a book that came out in 2023 which is called “Killing the Guys Who Kill You.”
Just say “last year”! That makes it sound like it was a really long time ago!
I’m just looking at my research!
I, like, just wrote a f*cking book, like give me a break now. You’re making it sound like, you know, “Get off your ass and write another book,” like it’s been a long…
So tell me about the book that you wrote last year.
Thank you. So yeah, I’m super proud of that because I, I didn’t know that I could do that. And I ended up writing a whole book and I’m very proud of it. But it was, uh, I’m a giant history dork. And I always have been. And that is one of the sort of little tells that, you know, people often go like, “Oh, I bet that joke was yours.” If it’s if there’s a Harry Truman joke that ends up like the chances are that was mine, you know, or whatever, that kind of thing. So like, I just, I’ve always been, I’m just fascinated by history and I think it’s really fun. And that company Scribd was, uh, which is now called Everand was just put out a call that was like, “Hey, we’re looking for a funny history thing.” And my manager was like, “Oh, I know the perfect guy.” And so I just pitched them a few ideas and that was one of them. And it’s just this particular topic. That’s always fascinated me, which is how zany, the, like everybody knows that John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, but, and people, a lot of people that know that John Wilkes Booth was, was then tracked down and killed himself. But how utterly zany the guy who killed John Wilkes Booth is, is such a fascinating dude. And um, he, uh, yeah, he was, uh, do you, do you know anything about him or did you, like?
I just know from doing research, he, uh, cut off a piece of his anatomy.
Yeah, so his name’s Boston Corbett, and he was like, uh, a hat maker. He made hats for a living, and that then meant he went crazy, because that is a real trope. Did you know about that? The Mad Hatter thing?
I didn’t know that. That makes sense now that you say Mad Hatter, but I didn’t know that was a thing.
Yeah, Lewis Carroll is like the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland, is like the first guy who kind of made that hilarious observation, which at the time was like, what a great comedic observation that was because every guy who made hats was just out of their f*cking mind and they were like, and, and it took like 30 years for people to put together that the reason why is because the process by which you would make felt hats is steaming it in liquid mercury. So what would happen is these guys who made hats would just sit in a room all day and just breathe in liquid mercury vapor. And that makes you crazy. And so that’s basically what happened to Boston Corbett. So he was this guy who made hats for a living. So he just went absolutely crazy, like a mad hatter. And then, uh, the Civil War started and he joined the civil war. Oh, no, no. Before that, actually. So before even that, so before he joined the civil war, so he’s a crazy hat maker. And he’s, he becomes an alcoholic. And then one night he gets propositioned by a prostitute on the street. And he gets really horny and he doesn’t know what to do about it. He gets very upset. He’s a religious zealot. He goes home and he reads the Bible. And there’s that part in the Bible that says, if your eye offends you, you should pluck it out, or if your hand is keeping it astray from God, you should cut it off. So he, uh, cut his balls off with a pair of scissors. And, uh, and then he didn’t go to the hospital. He just like went out to dinner and then went to church and whatever. And people were like, “Hey man, your d*ck’s bleeding.” And they like took him to the hospital and he almost died. But then he got out and the Civil War starts and he joins up and becomes like a super soldier in the civil war. And like, he ends up in Andersonville prison, which is like, you know, like this, you know, notorious gulag in, in, uh, in Georgia and he survives there. And then after, as soon as the war ends. Uh, Lincoln or the Warrens and then Lincoln Lincoln’s killed and he’s the first guy to volunteer and he chases John Wilkes Booth for 12 days to a barn and shoots him in the head. So that’s a fascinating, fascinating guy.
It’s amazing that that isn’t a movie.
Exactly. And like, I just thought, like, what a quirky little detail, like, you know, like little nugget of American history that I feel like a lot. And it’s just like a story I would tell people, you know, like, it’s kind of a drunk history type thing. You know what I mean? Where like, you know, he’s a really funny zany guy. He’s kind of like 19th century Mike Lindell in that way. And I just find him to be such a fascinating lunatic. Because then after that, he becomes super famous and he tours around the country, like reenacting the, how he killed John Wilkes Booth. And he keeps getting crazier. And then he holds the entire Kansas State Housestage, and he moves into a hole in the ground in Tennessee, in Kansas, and escapes to Mexico. Fascinating dude. So the book is about him, and then also it is about Edwin Booth, who is John Wilkes Booth’s brother, who you may know was, uh, his way more famous brother. When everybody kind of, like, it’s Southern revisionist history to say that John Wilkes Booth was a famous actor. Like, that’s what they started doing after the fact to, like, bolster John Wilkes. John Wilkes Booth was a loser. Like, he was, like, He was like one of the sh*tty Baldwin’s, you know what I mean? Like he came from a very famous family of actors and he was the goofball. Like he was not like the, his brother Edwin was like, like it was, it’s kind of the, uh, cause their dad was famous too. So it’s kind of the, uh, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Eric Douglas trifecta, right. And that’s, and, and John was Eric. And so the day after John Wilkes Booth killed the president, that’s the way everybody talked about it. It was like, did you hear that Edwin Booth’s brother killed the president? And that’s it. Now, nobody knows who Edwin is and he’s a funny, fascinating alcoholic. So.
Has your book that came out last year, has it been optioned?
No. But I also haven’t, I, like, I’ve been pretty, I’ve been busy, like, I would love to turn it into a thing. And I think part of, part of the reason that we’re, I’ve talked to my management about the possibility of doing a thing like that with it, but they just did Manhunt on Apple. Do you know about that?
I’ve heard, I know the name, I have, I’ve been working on deadline, so I haven’t seen anything in a while.
Yeah, and I liked it. Like, so Manhunt is, is like the sort of the quintessential book about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth. So there’s a lot of crossover with that, that what I did, but that one is like a super serious, like dramatic telling of, and, and Boston Corbett’s a minor character in Manhunt, but he is the central character in my thing. And so I feel like it kind of has to be put away for a little bit because that just came out. But, uh, but yeah.
I think it would be great. I, it’s, I had no, I was taught when in school that Wilkes Booth was, you know, the equivalent to like a Jack Nicholson that he was like this famous.
Exactly. That’s literally like the, the like Daughters of the Confederacy made that a talking point years later, is that John, like kind of the way they put up a bunch of Confederate statues in the 1910s, you know, that was when John Wilkes Booth became this lauded great actor. At the time, like Lincoln saw him perform, and was like, this guy sucks, more or less, so yeah, but Lincoln was a huge fan of Edwin’s, and like went to see Edwin like half a dozen times.
I had no idea, um, before we go, people really don’t know how generous Jimmy Kimmel is. I’ve heard so many stories behind the scenes, people that knew him, people that met him for the first time, um, do you have a story? Before we go, if not no worries.
No, but what I will tell you is that like, he is just such a genuine dude. Like a regular guy, like he’s not, you can just kinda, the first like when you see him, he will like ask you how your kids are, that kind of thing, you know? Like, he is just so nice every time I bring my wife around, like, you know what I mean? Like he’s just a… My parents came to the show once and like that he like brought my dad down and like, you know, talk to him for a couple minutes, got his picture with it. Like, you know, I mean, like he just is a genuinely like a, like a real sweetheart of a, like a real guy that you could just. You know, kind of count on and talk to like he’s just a legit decent person, you know, so
I like hearing that. Everybody buy Jesse’s book that came out last year.
You have to you have to subscribe to Everand that’s how you get it right. It’s an ebook and an audio book and it works like Netflix right where you subscribe to the service and then you have unlimited access to their originals and all their other content, which is just like tons and tons of books that were published elsewhere or whatever but, but they do like originals with like Stephen King and Margaret Atwood, and then, like, nobodies Like Me they’ll give an original to and so yeah you can find it there.
I wish we had more time, um, I know that we have to go for your stand up. What is your website so people can check out your stand up? I know you have a YouTube channel as well.
I don’t keep it updated. Instagram is probably where I would keep, uh, like put clips more recently, which is @JesseJoyce1, sadly, ’cause I didn’t get to it fast enough. But, but my website is just jessejoyce.com and you know, you just type in my name. I’m the one who comes up. There’s an Australian football player, but he’s way down the Google hits. So yeah.
Jesse, Astoria misses you, thank you so much for doing this. I really, really appreciate it. This was fun.
Sure thing. Mark, this was a blast. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. It’s very kind of you.