Photo by Mindy Tucker, illustration by Johansen Peralta
Josh Gondelman is a stand-up guy
Gondelman joins the podcast to discuss his approach to comedy, 'Desus & Mero,' definitely not doing cocaine, and Ben Affleck's tattoos
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It’s hard to find someone in the comedy world quite as well-loved by his peers as Josh Gondelman. A stand-up comic and host of the positivity-driven comedy game show podcast “Make My Day,” Gondelman is also the author of the essay collection “Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results,” and a frequent guest on NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” (listen to the episode with T-Pain if you haven’t yet—we can wait).
His vibe is upbeat and generous, which makes the makes it all the more delightful when the knives come out.
“Let’s find the warmth and goodness in the world in a fun way—sometimes tongue-in-cheek,” he says of his approach. “Because I have a very friendly affect and demeanor and personality, people sometimes in a fun way don’t realize that I can say sharp-edged things or write sharp-edged things. Sometimes it lies under the radar because I say it all friendly.”
Gondelman, who is this week’s guest on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast,” was half the team behind the parody Twitter account @SeinfeldToday, which amassed nearly a million followers by coming up with contemporary scenarios that could conceivably play out on the show in the 2010s. (During the pandemic Gondelman was actually approached by former Metallica bassist Jason Neustead who for some undeclared reason wanted to buy the feed from him.)
He leveraged his viral Twitter fame and considerable writing chops to join the staff at “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” where he would pick up an Emmy and two Peabody Awards. Since 2019 he has been a writer and producer for the wildly popular Showtime show “Desus & Mero” (which may not be where you’d expect a self-described doofus from the Boston suburbs to land).
“There is a lot we have in common in terms of comedic sensibility and what we think is funny,” Gondelman says on the podcast. “People also underestimate the ways in which Desus and Mero’s comedy is very warm and inviting and generous in a lot of ways.”
It was early in his time at “Desus & Mero” that he and his team were forced to navigate the challenges of production (and being funny) when Covid shut down the television industry. They set up green screens at the hosts’ homes, which allowed them to subvert the typical talk show format to brilliant effect. Now, finally, they are back in production in person for the first time in over a year.
Gondelman is also back out doing standup again. The night before we taped this podcast, he performed a set at Union Hall in Park Slope. Earlier in June, during the Tribeca Festival, he also filmed a set that will be released at some as-yet undetermined time.
Check out the podcast to hear about his approach to comedy, socializing, cocaine and using his loved ones as material. Stick around to the end and you’ll hear him participate in a quiz shoe of our own on a topic close to Gondelman’s heart: fellow Masshole Ben Affleck.