Dan Has Jokes

Dan is now hosting a new comedy podcast called The Dan and Mordecai Show, here is a short preview!

Dan talks to local headliner John Conroy about his experience as a professional comic. John talks about how certain things have changed since he started, and shares some thoughts about what a comic needs to do in order to be successful.

Dan and John exchange some ideas for jokes that they're working on, and talk about the aspects of comedic success that don't depend on having good material. John also discusses some of his worst performing experiences.

How do you find the perfect comedy catch phrase? When is it good to back away from a unique branding opportunity? These are some of the topics that Dan discusses with Baltimore comic Woo Woo.

Dan and Woo Woo talk about some recent shows they did together. Woo Woo talks about how comedy turned out to be more challenging than she realized, although she is a very strong performer. She and Dan compare notes on how they prepare for shows and write down new material.

Dan talks to Liz Miele, who speaks about the importance of self-care, and staying mentally healthy. This, it turns out, is crucial for better, more grounded comedy. Liz talks about a new joke she is working on about learning to understand her mom. Meanwhile Dan has an idea for a joke about turning down social interactions with friends so that he can stay home and experience the illusion of hanging out with people via YouTube.

Dan sits down with DC comedian Pete Musto to talk about his comedy group The Midnight, who recently got their own show at the DC Improv. Dan and Pete talk about the distinctions between club comedy and alt comedy. After exploring the way that comedy can fail to translate into other cultural contexts, they discuss the nature of comedy and the tendency of certain comics to be offensive purely for the sake of being offensive.

Dan talks to DC comic Sandi Benton about bucket lists, bad date locations, and writing jokes that make no sense. Sandi has a joke about getting bullied at a seance, but feels it could be stronger. She and Dan discuss the many possibilities in the idea of someone using a Ouija Board to send passive aggressive messages to a person in the room. They find the topic of demons to be fertile ground for comedy material.

Dan talks to King Tink about the origin of his stage name, and the strange phenomenon of YouTube and everything it entails. They do, however, commiserate with each other about the fact that all entertainers need to keep producing content. They kick around various ideas for kinds of content each of them could produce.

Hear the rest of the interview at patreon.com/danhasjokes!

This episode was previously released as a patreon-only episode. New episodes will return next week!

Chris Hudson stops by to talk about an ill-fated robot, and then he and Dan have a somewhat in-depth discussion about the inner workings of Twitter comedy. Chris runs a very funny Twitter account, @cwhudson, and is bummed out that he can’t get @chrishudson even though the other Chris Hudson never tweets. They debate the merits of doing topical political jokes in light of the never-ending 24-hour news cycle, and discuss some of ways that Twitter comedy can get weird.

Greg Billet returns to the podcast to talk about social media. Dan explains why he thinks a lot of his twitter followers are fake, and Greg wonders what the point of it all is. Should they become Instagram influencers? Are they even capable of pulling that off? The answer to both questions is probably no. Greg doesn’t understand why he’s not invited to the Neighborhood Watch. Are they watching him? Dan relates his recent problems with cockroaches.