Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Caroline Hirsch Talks NY Comedy Fest, Old vs. New Comedy, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Wanda Sykes, Tracy Morgan, Caroline’s Comedy Club + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Caroline Hirsch Talks NY Comedy Fest, Old vs. New Comedy, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Wanda Sykes, Tracy Morgan, Caroline’s Comedy Club + More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: Every day clicks up. The Breakfast Club.
0:05
Speaker 2: Finished for y'all.
0:06
Speaker 3: Done morning, everybody is d j Envy just hilarious, Charlamagne
0:12
Speaker 3: to God. We are the Breakfast Club. Lna Roses here
0:14
Speaker 3: as well. We got a special guest.
0:16
Speaker 4: In the building. Ladies and gentlemen, we have Caroline Hirst.
0:20
Speaker 5: Good morning, good morning, good morning guys. Nice to see
0:23
Speaker 5: you all again, the.
0:24
Speaker 3: Owner and founder of Caroline's on Broadway, the iconic comedy spot.
0:28
Speaker 6: But I miss so been to a comedy club since
0:32
Speaker 6: I used to go to Caroline's all the time. Greg,
0:35
Speaker 6: you always made sure we were good so many different
0:38
Speaker 6: comedians that Carolina man. I literally have not been to
0:41
Speaker 6: a comedy club in New York City.
0:42
Speaker 4: Since I've been to a couple. But it's not the same.
0:44
Speaker 3: Like I said, me and the wife used to go
0:45
Speaker 3: damn there every other week and it didn't matter who
0:47
Speaker 3: was performing because it was always somebody's good and you
0:50
Speaker 3: would get to learn about comedians there.
0:52
Speaker 4: And that spot is heavily But I even did my podcast.
0:55
Speaker 3: I did a podcast weekend there and you showed us
0:57
Speaker 3: so much love.
0:58
Speaker 4: So before we get into big, what do we bring
1:01
Speaker 4: Carolines back?
1:01
Speaker 5: Well, Carolines is kind of exists with the New York
1:06
Speaker 5: Comedy Festival, so we kind of closed down Carolines the building,
1:10
Speaker 5: but not forgotten Carolines. But we do and produce shows
1:13
Speaker 5: to the New York Comedy Festival, which happens this year
1:16
Speaker 5: November sixth through the fifteenth, and we're very happy to
1:19
Speaker 5: present a whole new slew of younger comedians to our
1:22
Speaker 5: roster plus the older ones. And that's where the festival
1:25
Speaker 5: has gone over the years. It used to be just
1:27
Speaker 5: stand up, but now it's integrated with podcasts, with political humor,
1:32
Speaker 5: with improv, with digital creators, so it's about a lot
1:36
Speaker 5: of different people coming together in the festival. And this year,
1:40
Speaker 5: Jess Hilarious is there headlining at the Hard Rock Hotel,
1:45
Speaker 5: which is my favorite room in New York City.
1:48
Speaker 2: I love it and I have never played it, so
1:50
Speaker 2: I'm so excited.
1:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're excited to have you.
1:52
Speaker 1: Yes, they're hard Like Caroline gl it was.
1:56
Speaker 5: It was, you know, it was so bittersweet. I knew
1:59
Speaker 5: the time. It was forty over forty years doing it
2:02
Speaker 5: and it was time to say, Okay, what's my next
2:05
Speaker 5: thing to do in life? And I missed the staff.
2:08
Speaker 5: I'm missing the talent. I missed my customers, I miss
2:11
Speaker 5: all of that about it, but went on to do
2:14
Speaker 5: the festival as a way to really stay in the
2:16
Speaker 5: business and work with everybody that kind of graduated from
2:19
Speaker 5: Carolines too.
2:20
Speaker 7: And I will say I'm one of the graduates because
2:23
Speaker 7: I that was like my favorite comedy club to come
2:27
Speaker 7: up here. And do you know they will always warn
2:29
Speaker 7: us comics about New York and how hard it is
2:33
Speaker 7: like to succeed. If you can make it in New
2:35
Speaker 7: York on that stage, you can make it anywhere. And
2:37
Speaker 7: I just remember always being welcomed. The service was great,
2:42
Speaker 7: the vibe right there in the middle of Times Square,
2:45
Speaker 7: and I also love how it worked right. One of
2:47
Speaker 7: the interesting things about Carolines on Broadway was y'all vetted
2:52
Speaker 7: every stand up that came there right, like you didn't
2:54
Speaker 7: just let anybody come in there and do stand if
2:57
Speaker 7: they call theyself a stand up comedian. Because even when
2:59
Speaker 7: my first time going, I was told like, no, you
3:02
Speaker 7: have to have two comedians vouch for you, and Nick
3:07
Speaker 7: Cannon and Kevin Hart called and vouch for me. And
3:09
Speaker 7: I got on that stage and I have been playing
3:11
Speaker 7: a stage for years, and that's where Charlamagne and God
3:14
Speaker 7: first came and saw me.
3:16
Speaker 2: I don't think envy you came to see me there,
3:17
Speaker 2: But I.
3:18
Speaker 7: Actually love what I was able to bring the Carolina
3:21
Speaker 7: and Carolina I'll.
3:22
Speaker 5: Sway back in twenty and eighty eight, he was and
3:25
Speaker 5: you swd out every.
3:26
Speaker 2: Show, every show, every year.
3:28
Speaker 5: So I remember sitting in the audience watching you. Yeah,
3:31
Speaker 5: like a little fireball on stage, excited whatever.
3:34
Speaker 2: So thank you for even having me at the New
3:36
Speaker 2: York Comedy Festival.
3:37
Speaker 5: Oh I'm so excited to have you there.
3:39
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, Yeah.
3:41
Speaker 3: What's your biggest memory of Caroline's We hear, I know,
3:44
Speaker 3: we hear. I love tell a story all the time
3:45
Speaker 3: about Charles Oakley throwing the chicken wings.
3:49
Speaker 4: I will never forget that night, break it down.
3:51
Speaker 5: I will never forget that night. It was like who
3:56
Speaker 5: was on stage at that time? It was to Dre
4:00
Speaker 5: and ed Lover. It was ed Lover night, like who's
4:03
Speaker 5: in the house, and it was a part of that.
4:05
Speaker 5: And all of a sudden, I see I see a
4:09
Speaker 5: glass go across the room, and then I see chicken
4:11
Speaker 5: wings going across the room. It was like but it
4:15
Speaker 5: was like one big fun party that we you know,
4:17
Speaker 5: Greg Charles and I We always talk about that about
4:20
Speaker 5: how that went on that night. So it was a
4:22
Speaker 5: lot of fun. It's when the nineties Nicks used to
4:26
Speaker 5: come in all the time. I mean it would be
4:30
Speaker 5: like after a game, before a game, they were in town.
4:33
Speaker 5: We had so much fun at that time, Anthony Mason.
4:36
Speaker 5: It was like it was like like home base for them,
4:39
Speaker 5: and it was so much fun. And they'd always come
4:40
Speaker 5: in to see Ed Lover's show.
4:43
Speaker 6: I remember when I remember the Kevin Hart weekend when
4:45
Speaker 6: Kevin Hart, that was like the weekend everybody was like, Okay, Kevin,
4:49
Speaker 6: Kevin has arrived.
4:50
Speaker 5: Kevin has arrived. And actually, you know, after that, so
4:53
Speaker 5: with the Comedy Festival, you know, we had Kevin at
4:56
Speaker 5: Carolines for a number of shows that he sold out.
4:58
Speaker 5: Then we produced him at the Beacon Theater for a
5:00
Speaker 5: number of shows, and then we went and put him
5:03
Speaker 5: in Madison Square Garden. And that was the idea of
5:08
Speaker 5: Louis Veranda to tape a movie with him, and then
5:12
Speaker 5: Kevin did that.
5:13
Speaker 8: Can we talk about the institution of comedy clubs though, right,
5:15
Speaker 8: because what you just said with Kevin Hart and then
5:18
Speaker 8: Jess and that being like her first experiences here in
5:20
Speaker 8: New York. I feel like sometimes people miss, like if
5:23
Speaker 8: you're younger, you miss. You don't get to learn the
5:25
Speaker 8: community that the comedy club is or the education that
5:28
Speaker 8: people get there.
5:29
Speaker 1: On the stage.
5:30
Speaker 5: They get a big education there because I'll tell you
5:33
Speaker 5: what happens is that when you sell out. When you
5:35
Speaker 5: were selling out Carolines, the agents got on the phone
5:38
Speaker 5: to everybody else and say, Okay, now we're ready for theaters,
5:41
Speaker 5: you know, like stuff like that. So that was that.
5:45
Speaker 5: It was a process at Carolines. And you can really
5:47
Speaker 5: see how how we promoted comedy. And I'm not slapping
5:51
Speaker 5: myself on the back about this one, but when I
5:53
Speaker 5: upened Carolines in the early eighties, nobody covered comedy at all.
5:59
Speaker 5: No media really covered comedy. I had to convince the
6:02
Speaker 5: Daily News, the Post, and eventually the New York Times
6:05
Speaker 5: came around and wrote this great article about Carolines, and
6:08
Speaker 5: I think it was nineteen eighty five, calling it like
6:11
Speaker 5: the yuppy little nightclub in New York, and it kind
6:14
Speaker 5: of put us on the map. And then we broke
6:16
Speaker 5: out after that. And then you saw from when I
6:19
Speaker 5: opened this at I was on Eighth Avenue in Chelsea.
6:23
Speaker 5: Then I was down at the Seaport, and then I
6:26
Speaker 5: opened on Broadway in nineteen ninety two and stayed there
6:29
Speaker 5: for thirty years. Wow, it was a long time.
6:31
Speaker 6: What would you call it now, Because like you said,
6:33
Speaker 6: you've you've always done the New York Comedy Festival, and
6:35
Speaker 6: you're telling us about the stuff with keV.
6:37
Speaker 1: You got them at the.
6:37
Speaker 6: Beacon and at the Garden, Like, what would you call
6:40
Speaker 6: what you're doing there?
6:42
Speaker 5: It's kind of the same stuff that we're doing. We
6:44
Speaker 5: take a lot of the acts that we, you know,
6:46
Speaker 5: had at Carolines with people that we've been watching over
6:49
Speaker 5: the years and taking them kind of out of the
6:52
Speaker 5: clubs and into also into the clubs and kind of
6:55
Speaker 5: promoting them and putting putting ourselves behind them and really
6:59
Speaker 5: getting out there. I wrote them, lots of comedians can
7:02
Speaker 5: come to town and sell out, but nobody even knows
7:04
Speaker 5: they're there. You know, we make a big deal about
7:07
Speaker 5: the art. And I always have done that, so, you know,
7:11
Speaker 5: right from the get go. So so I always believed
7:13
Speaker 5: in comedy and like here's this you know, young woman
7:18
Speaker 5: at the time when I started this, and what the
7:20
Speaker 5: hell is she know about comedy? But I there was
7:23
Speaker 5: something happening in the air. David Letterman was going on
7:27
Speaker 5: in the air, and it was just all of the
7:31
Speaker 5: young comedians coming up. The new observational humor was happening
7:36
Speaker 5: at that time, and then I just started hiring people.
7:39
Speaker 6: If you were opening Carolina today, would you build a
7:41
Speaker 6: comedy club or would you build a media company.
7:45
Speaker 5: I'd like to say that I dabbled in media. I
7:47
Speaker 5: mean we're called Carolines Media right now. You know, I
7:51
Speaker 5: had a TV show for years on the A and
7:54
Speaker 5: A channel from like nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety six.
7:58
Speaker 5: We taped about one hundred and twenty episodes of stand
8:01
Speaker 5: up comedy during that time, where there was a young
8:04
Speaker 5: Dave Chappelle on there, a young John Stewart, a young
8:08
Speaker 5: Raver Romano. I mean, we had everybody coming up the
8:11
Speaker 5: ranks at that time on that TV show.
8:14
Speaker 1: So you think it'd be more of a media company.
8:17
Speaker 5: I think so, you know, Charlamagne, I I had a
8:19
Speaker 5: lot of chances to produce things along the way, and
8:23
Speaker 5: I just kind of stepped back from it, not knowing
8:26
Speaker 5: and not probably having the foresight to see where all
8:29
Speaker 5: of this was going down the line. But I think
8:31
Speaker 5: we helped nurture the careers of those people. Look, Wanda
8:36
Speaker 5: Sykes met Chris Rock because she was an opening act
8:41
Speaker 5: for Chris and they got to be such great buddies.
8:44
Speaker 5: He hired her to be on the show. And Wanda
8:46
Speaker 5: will tell that story all the time.
8:47
Speaker 8: I've heard all the time about how he saw her
8:49
Speaker 8: and was like, I'm gonna have something for you.
8:51
Speaker 2: So that was that Caroline.
8:53
Speaker 5: She was the opening act for Chris.
8:55
Speaker 3: Wow, what comedian was was performed the most at Caroline
8:57
Speaker 3: because I remember seeing Tracy Morgan a lot.
9:01
Speaker 5: Tracy was my little baby, so he kind of started
9:04
Speaker 5: out there first, starting up, and we stayed with him,
9:07
Speaker 5: even though customers would say, oh my god, that act
9:10
Speaker 5: was just so blue, But we stayed with Tracy because
9:14
Speaker 5: we believed in Tracy and we always love Tracy so
9:18
Speaker 5: dirty they call it blue. That was an expression. It's
9:25
Speaker 5: very blue. But you know, we've just worked with just
9:29
Speaker 5: so many people over the years. You know, you talk
9:32
Speaker 5: about Kevin. I was at Kevin's movie last night, Hilarious.
9:38
Speaker 5: It was really really a funny, funny movie and enjoyed
9:43
Speaker 5: seeing all that comedy on the stage and Kevin, I
9:45
Speaker 5: think it's I think it was one of the funniest
9:48
Speaker 5: movies I've ever seen him in.
9:50
Speaker 1: A nice At that time, he was trying to figure
9:53
Speaker 1: it out.
9:54
Speaker 4: I think it was yeah, eight or nine to one Sunday.
10:00
Speaker 5: I think we put three on each night and two
10:02
Speaker 5: on Sunday. Yeah, h yeah, Okayhosday and then he was
10:11
Speaker 5: ready to Then he came back in the festival and
10:14
Speaker 5: we did I think three sold out Beacon shows and
10:18
Speaker 5: then we moved on to Madison Square Garden.
10:20
Speaker 2: What's the capacity at the Beacon.
10:22
Speaker 5: Twenty eight hundred seats?
10:25
Speaker 6: Is the still a room for like the next Kevin
10:28
Speaker 6: Hard or Seinfeld or Chris Rock to like slowly develop
10:33
Speaker 6: over years, or like we live in this society that
10:35
Speaker 6: demands overnight success.
10:36
Speaker 5: Well, I think that more people are kind of skipping
10:39
Speaker 5: the club and learning how to do that, and they
10:43
Speaker 5: all want to do theaters now, but they don't have
10:45
Speaker 5: the capacity to do it. And I watch I see
10:47
Speaker 5: who goes tries to go into theaters and they can
10:50
Speaker 5: only sell half or a quarter of it, and they
10:53
Speaker 5: kind of fudge it. But that's because their management wants
10:56
Speaker 5: them to do it, their agent wants them to do it,
10:59
Speaker 5: and I think they to push it a little too
11:01
Speaker 5: fast to do that. I think it's it's to build
11:04
Speaker 5: that that that that following, that slow following that gets
11:08
Speaker 5: you you need.
11:09
Speaker 3: We talk about Carolines and you talk about, you know,
11:11
Speaker 3: reaching out to the papers, but one of the things
11:13
Speaker 3: based out of New York and growing up in New York,
11:15
Speaker 3: Carolines was big for having the staff bring the comedians
11:19
Speaker 3: to radio. Whose idea was that and why did that
11:23
Speaker 3: work so well? Because nobody else before that really said,
11:26
Speaker 3: you know what, we're going to make sure every comedian
11:28
Speaker 3: goes to radio, and we're going to.
11:29
Speaker 4: Have a staff that does that, which is I'll.
11:31
Speaker 5: Tell you how that started. So I opened Carolines. It
11:34
Speaker 5: must have been nineteen eighty through eighty two eighty three,
11:37
Speaker 5: and Howard Stern was on Afternoon Drive and he wanted
11:43
Speaker 5: I believed the first one I remember was Pee Wee Herman.
11:46
Speaker 5: He wanted him on his show, and then Richard Belzer
11:51
Speaker 5: and that was the start of comedians on the radio
11:54
Speaker 5: for me. And that's what that happened. And then when
11:57
Speaker 5: Howard was kind of fire from NBC and went to
12:01
Speaker 5: k Rock, that and he wanted more and more of that,
12:04
Speaker 5: and that's how we started and then other like this show,
12:09
Speaker 5: all of this all created over when and Wendy had
12:16
Speaker 5: everyone on and she did her own show there at
12:18
Speaker 5: the club. We had a lot of fun those days,
12:21
Speaker 5: we really did.
12:22
Speaker 8: Where did you love for the entertainment in comedy come from?
12:26
Speaker 8: Because you worked as in retailer executive in fashion?
12:30
Speaker 5: Yeah, I worked for maybe people still remember the chain Gimbals,
12:34
Speaker 5: which was on thirty third Street and sixth Avenue.
12:36
Speaker 4: I don't know.
12:38
Speaker 5: Gimbles was like had forty one stores around the country,
12:41
Speaker 5: and I was kind of a market rep. So I
12:43
Speaker 5: would suggest what was selling for the buyers to buy.
12:46
Speaker 5: And I did that and it was like almost I
12:49
Speaker 5: wasn't working. They were closing. Friends of mine said we're
12:51
Speaker 5: opening up cabaret. Come be a partner with us, and
12:55
Speaker 5: that's how it started. So we did some cabaret acts.
12:59
Speaker 5: Wasn't quite working in my mind, and then went on
13:02
Speaker 5: to start hiring like a Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, and
13:06
Speaker 5: we were off and running.
13:08
Speaker 2: There Have you always loved comedy like I did?
13:10
Speaker 5: I did comedy albums a as a kid, so I've
13:13
Speaker 5: always watched Johnny Carson at that time, so you know
13:17
Speaker 5: got to you know, learned a lot about you know
13:20
Speaker 5: what kind of worked, And I'll tell you, from sitting
13:23
Speaker 5: in a room for forty years, you kind of know
13:25
Speaker 5: what works, and you kind of know what's going to
13:27
Speaker 5: succeed and who's going to make it.
13:30
Speaker 3: Did you love the fact that people didn't necessarily know
13:32
Speaker 3: who you were, like, of course the comedians did, but
13:35
Speaker 3: you could have been at all the shows and I
13:37
Speaker 3: don't think I've met you until you came up here
13:39
Speaker 3: last time on radio.
13:40
Speaker 4: Like, but you was there all the time.
13:42
Speaker 5: I'm there all the time. And actually our offices were
13:44
Speaker 5: right around the corner behind the behind the bathrooms there,
13:47
Speaker 5: so we I was there constantly. I've come in like
13:50
Speaker 5: probably the day was I came out about eleven or
13:53
Speaker 5: twelve and then stayed through the beginning of the first
13:55
Speaker 5: shows and then went home. It was, it was, it was,
13:59
Speaker 5: it was.
13:59
Speaker 8: It was.
14:00
Speaker 5: It was great time. I met great people. I met
14:02
Speaker 5: the most talented people in the world. Comedy is the
14:05
Speaker 5: hardest art form in the world to do, so it
14:09
Speaker 5: was it was enlightening. And to see where everybody kind
14:13
Speaker 5: of went after that, I mean from doing you know,
14:18
Speaker 5: having a Jerry Seinfeld doing his first New Year's Eve
14:22
Speaker 5: at Carolines was like a big deal at that time,
14:27
Speaker 5: That's what.
14:27
Speaker 6: I'm saying, Like, I mean, I know the reason y'all
14:29
Speaker 6: left the building was the guy put the lease up
14:31
Speaker 6: too much, right or something like that.
14:33
Speaker 5: Well, part of that part of that time for change,
14:39
Speaker 5: I think I was ready. You know, people like you know,
14:41
Speaker 5: they they never want to retire from what they do,
14:43
Speaker 5: and I wanted to go out in kind of a
14:45
Speaker 5: big way. And we had such a celebration that I mean,
14:48
Speaker 5: it was covered in the media like an opening and
14:51
Speaker 5: it was a closing, and maybe it was like we
14:54
Speaker 5: all needed to move on to something else at that time.
14:57
Speaker 5: But I loved the Carolines and I loved the people,
14:59
Speaker 5: Like meeting all of you you know, we do you
15:01
Speaker 5: have that kind of job when you get to meet
15:03
Speaker 5: all of these people.
15:04
Speaker 6: Did you feel like a ballplayer who was ready to
15:07
Speaker 6: hang it up, like you know what, I left it
15:08
Speaker 6: all on the court.
15:09
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you still had more to do?
15:11
Speaker 5: Right? No, I think we do more with the festival
15:14
Speaker 5: festival right now. Yeah, and then able to keep my
15:16
Speaker 5: finger on what's going on.
15:18
Speaker 6: So what do you like more to the intimacy of
15:20
Speaker 6: a Carolinees or the festival at this gale, I mean
15:23
Speaker 6: ten days, five boroughs, two hundred plus comedians, one hundred
15:27
Speaker 6: plus shows.
15:28
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
15:28
Speaker 4: That's a lot.
15:29
Speaker 5: It's a lot. It's a lot to cover. But we
15:31
Speaker 5: get to work with everybody that we want to work with,
15:34
Speaker 5: and then we keep my eye on everyone. So that's
15:36
Speaker 5: the great part. But I still get like, I'll go
15:39
Speaker 5: into town Hall, I'll go to the venue at the
15:42
Speaker 5: hard Rock, which I love, and I go in there
15:44
Speaker 5: and I see everybody having such a great time and
15:47
Speaker 5: the performers loving the venues that we're in. I just
15:51
Speaker 5: it just it just makes me feel like it's just
15:54
Speaker 5: an extension of Caroline's.
15:56
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I love most about it.
15:58
Speaker 7: And then also for the comics, gives us a bigger
16:01
Speaker 7: platform than just you know, than just the stage, although
16:04
Speaker 7: Caroline's great, right, but like the festival, it's gonna be
16:09
Speaker 7: I'm being in front of people I've never has never
16:11
Speaker 7: seen me. They hear they may hear me on the
16:13
Speaker 7: Breakfast Club. They don't know what I'm coming with what
16:15
Speaker 7: I got. I'm gonn knock their socks off, Caroline, I'm
16:17
Speaker 7: telling you, But then I'm gonna.
16:25
Speaker 4: And how do people get tickets. How can they get tickets?
16:27
Speaker 5: Well, you can go to New York Comedy Festival dot
16:30
Speaker 5: com and uh, tickets are on sale right now. They
16:34
Speaker 5: just went on sale yesterday, so there's lots of great
16:38
Speaker 5: seats left hopefully, and then go there now because everything
16:44
Speaker 5: really sells out with the festival. So you want really
16:46
Speaker 5: great seats, you have to do it. Now.
16:49
Speaker 6: What's the night that feels the most, like Caroline? You
16:52
Speaker 6: think all of these too big.
16:53
Speaker 1: That have that feel?
16:54
Speaker 5: Well, I think Justice shows, Yeah, like the and Intimate
16:59
Speaker 5: Space and.
17:04
Speaker 2: I do four shows.
17:06
Speaker 5: You know, this is what the live This is why
17:09
Speaker 5: live events have been so exciting because people now can
17:12
Speaker 5: connect with people like you that they see and hear.
17:16
Speaker 5: And that's really what's kept comedy going. With the explosion
17:19
Speaker 5: of you know what what cable are now, Internet and
17:24
Speaker 5: Netflix and Hbo all fostering you know, comedians and YouTube.
17:29
Speaker 5: So let's not forget that that has made a lot
17:31
Speaker 5: of a lot of comedians sell out for the live events.
17:35
Speaker 5: People really get to see them and if they like them,
17:38
Speaker 5: they go.
17:39
Speaker 8: In your experience, right, Like, what has been the best
17:41
Speaker 8: parallel that you've seen comedians step into, whether it's like
17:43
Speaker 8: a commentary like what just is doing here? Or acting
17:46
Speaker 8: first like looking back, like what's the This one makes
17:49
Speaker 8: the most sense for a lot of people.
17:51
Speaker 5: It used to be that everybody wanted that sitcom, but
17:54
Speaker 5: that doesn't happen anymore.
17:56
Speaker 8: Now.
17:56
Speaker 5: They want to tour, they want to be on their
17:59
Speaker 5: own pod casting very very important and very important to
18:02
Speaker 5: the festival. We really back a lot of that up
18:06
Speaker 5: and we really brought that live to the stage also
18:09
Speaker 5: over the years. That's the difference. It's coming from all
18:13
Speaker 5: over digital creators. It's like they don't it used to
18:17
Speaker 5: be TV or I needed that spot on Johnny Carson.
18:21
Speaker 5: It's changed. It's changed so much.
18:23
Speaker 6: You know, social media has made people famous before they're funny, right,
18:28
Speaker 6: have virality become a bigger currency than talent?
18:32
Speaker 1: We have.
18:33
Speaker 5: We came into those problems where we would put somebody
18:37
Speaker 5: into the club because they were this internet star and
18:41
Speaker 5: they kind of didn't have it unless they really got
18:44
Speaker 5: and worked on an act to do. So we did
18:46
Speaker 5: it once, but we never booked them back again.
18:48
Speaker 7: We see, that's where I feel like, that's that's when
18:51
Speaker 7: I had.
18:51
Speaker 4: To get vetted.
18:52
Speaker 7: That's when he started vetting everybody, like, yo, you need
18:55
Speaker 7: you need people to vouch for you, like real stand
18:57
Speaker 7: up comedians.
18:58
Speaker 2: That's going to put asses in these seats to vouch
19:00
Speaker 2: for y'all.
19:01
Speaker 5: Not.
19:01
Speaker 2: That's when I got Nick Cannon and Kevin Hart to
19:03
Speaker 2: do that. I'm glad they did.
19:04
Speaker 6: That's when I realized just was actually funny really stage
19:09
Speaker 6: to me. I mean, I'm old iman than nineteen and
19:10
Speaker 6: seventy eight. So the litmus test for me is what
19:13
Speaker 6: you do on that stage? See her on that stage,
19:15
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh, just really do you really do?
19:17
Speaker 1: Stand up?
19:18
Speaker 8: From That's how I was the first time I went
19:19
Speaker 8: to see I text. I think that text, man, it
19:21
Speaker 8: was like I see, like this is that's the start,
19:23
Speaker 8: Like just you're different on the stage.
19:26
Speaker 4: In Atlantic City.
19:27
Speaker 8: Yeah, when I brought my mom, bro.
19:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, but that you know that that's the test to
19:32
Speaker 5: how you go on I mean, just sell out all
19:34
Speaker 5: the shows that you know, you really are. You have
19:38
Speaker 5: to be really funny, you have you have that following.
19:40
Speaker 8: Ever felt bad for somebody when they bombed on the
19:43
Speaker 8: stage at Carolines and that kind of took them under
19:45
Speaker 8: like all right, let's work like let me kind of
19:46
Speaker 8: develop us talent.
19:47
Speaker 2: And it worked out.
19:50
Speaker 5: Well. Listen, We never told anybody that they weren't funny.
19:53
Speaker 5: We never did that. We would phrase it like, you know,
19:59
Speaker 5: maybe it should work on this or that, or your
20:02
Speaker 5: material needs more work. You really need to write. Our
20:05
Speaker 5: best thing was you know, Lewis and I always told
20:08
Speaker 5: everybody you really need to write. You have to be original,
20:11
Speaker 5: you have to have your own voice. That was something
20:14
Speaker 5: that we try to tell all of the young comedians.
20:18
Speaker 5: They want to how can I get how can I
20:20
Speaker 5: get good at this? That's what you have to do,
20:22
Speaker 5: and it's it's not overnight. This takes a long time
20:24
Speaker 5: to do.
20:25
Speaker 1: That is resilience, the most underrated skill in comedy.
20:28
Speaker 5: No, resilience is a skill that you really need to
20:31
Speaker 5: have because you know not everybody's going to left at
20:34
Speaker 5: that terrific joke you told. So you have to know
20:37
Speaker 5: and you have to be confident that you're going to
20:39
Speaker 5: be on that stage. And when you're confident and give
20:42
Speaker 5: it out there, the audience knows that.
20:43
Speaker 3: And you never sensed anybody at Caroline's like told somebody
20:46
Speaker 3: stay away from that or anything like that.
20:48
Speaker 6: No.
20:48
Speaker 5: I never did, No, No, I never did. But sometimes
20:52
Speaker 5: I would cringe.
20:53
Speaker 6: I'd cringe it myself when you watch stand up go
20:57
Speaker 6: from clubs to cable to screaming too. You know, social
21:00
Speaker 6: media like which shift changed comedy more than people even realize.
21:05
Speaker 5: Well, what's made new digital stars would be the Internet. Okay,
21:11
Speaker 5: but you know, if you go back in time, it
21:13
Speaker 5: started with radio went to early TV or comedy. That's
21:17
Speaker 5: what transferred all comedy. Radio, comedy went back to TV.
21:22
Speaker 5: Then the birth of cable with HBO getting behind young
21:26
Speaker 5: comedians and doing the stand up specials and showtime, and
21:30
Speaker 5: then after that Netflix stepped in when that became the
21:33
Speaker 5: phenomenon and kind of stole I tell you stole the
21:38
Speaker 5: thunder from HBO what they were doing.
21:40
Speaker 2: So yeah, I agree.
21:42
Speaker 3: Well, like she said, ten days, five boroughs, two hundred comedians,
21:45
Speaker 3: one hundred plus shows, get out there and get your
21:48
Speaker 3: tickets out very own, just hilarious.
21:50
Speaker 4: We'll be hard rock hotel. How many shows?
21:52
Speaker 2: Four shows?
21:53
Speaker 1: Four shows?
21:54
Speaker 3: I will be there for one of them, definitely, positively,
21:57
Speaker 3: six to fifteenth that's right.
21:59
Speaker 7: I love the the marketing, like how I just saw
22:02
Speaker 7: something like it's it's gone viral, Like how y'all are marketing?
22:04
Speaker 7: Y'all have like the stickers comedians faces and the rooms
22:07
Speaker 7: are going to be in and y'all stamping them all
22:09
Speaker 7: over New York City.
22:10
Speaker 2: That is so dope. That's really dope.
22:13
Speaker 5: It's gonna be thank you. They started in the bagas Yeah,
22:17
Speaker 5: I think it's so creative.
22:18
Speaker 3: Then y'all wrapped the side because that's how you would see. Yeah,
22:21
Speaker 3: you would see who was in the thing, to see
22:23
Speaker 3: who's gonna be there this weekend.
22:24
Speaker 5: So that was called sniping. You used to do the
22:28
Speaker 5: Carolines posters, and we used to put them all over
22:30
Speaker 5: New York. Remember when I first started, You.
22:33
Speaker 4: Need to bring Caroline's back. I know you're like, I'm
22:35
Speaker 4: over this and that's no, but I need something.
22:40
Speaker 3: If I want to take I want to go somewhere
22:42
Speaker 3: in Carolina where they everybody knows what your name is,
22:44
Speaker 3: like a big hug.
22:46
Speaker 5: When you go to the hard rock, you walk down
22:48
Speaker 5: the stairs to pretend it's Carolines and we'll make sure
22:53
Speaker 5: the hospitality is as long as you.
22:56
Speaker 4: There, we can all right, it's Caroline Hirsch.
22:58
Speaker 1: It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, mm hmmm.
23:01
Speaker 6: Hold up every day a week, click your glass up
23:04
Speaker 6: the Breakfast Club, finish your
23:09
Speaker 5: Mm hm