Comedy, of course, is a broad term. Making a list of the best comedy podcasts is kind of like making a list of the best music podcasts: are you interested in middle-aged intellectuals having a sober discussion about their favorite classical composers or do you want to hear an MTV VJ tell you how awesome the new Fall Out Boy is? For different people the answer is invariably different. That being said, there are some podcasts about comedy that stand out above the rest. Here are my top five, in no particular order:
Never Not Funny. This podcast is hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Jimmy Pardo and features a new guest comedian each week. Pardo will be the first one to tell you that his strength is not writing out jokes and delivering them word for word, but ad-libbing and quickly reacting to the nuances of the current situation. There is no topical structure to this podcast - Pardo lets the conversation go where it may, from 80s hair metal to a guy he ran into at 7-11. A consistently high level of humor is sustained by Pardo's off-the-cuff quips. When this podcast is smart, it's very smart; when the humor becomes cheap or easy, Pardo calls it out and practically apologizes to his audience. He has an opinion on every nuance of the conversation and will not for a moment let a guest forget that he is the captian of the Never Not Funny ship. After listening to several episodes of this weekly show, you will grow attached to Pardo, his co-host Matt Belknap (founder of aspecialthing.com), and the rotating list of a dozen or so guest comedians.
The Bugle: Daily Show correspondent John Oliver co-hosts this weekly podcast with stand-up comedian and fellow Brit Andy Zaltzman. They talk mostly about international politics and current events with an absurdist, random kind of humor that at times evokes Monty Python. The podcast is recorded with Oliver in New York City and Zaltzman in London, but they're both completely on the same page comedically, so you'd never know. Theirs is a single comedy mind honed over years of writing and performing together as a duo in England. The podcast itself is tightly structured, moving from topic to topic in chunks of a few minutes. Each segment is packed full of written jokes, interspersed with periods of spontaneous conversation, then before it gets old there's a music break and they jump right into the next topic. This podcast is a lean 30 minutes, edited down from probably much more material.
I Love Movies: This podcast is hosted by stand-up comedian Doug Benson, best known for his contributions to Best Week Ever, his off-Broadway show The Marijuanalogues, and his documentary Super High Me. Taped twice a month in front of a live audience at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles, each episode features two guests, usually comedians, who theoretically talk to Benson about movies. In practice, however, Benson often allows the conversation to drift off into unrelated areas, a fact that is often itself a source of comedy on this very self-aware podcast. Past guests on I Love Movies include David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Paul F. Tompkins, Jon Hamm of Mad Men, Patton Oswalt, and Bob Odenkirk. Benson is another comedian who, like Jimmy Pardo, thrives on the immediacy of ad-libs and relies on his quick wit to take the show to another level. And he is often very high.
The Ricky Gervais Show: While technically no longer podcasting, Ricky Gervais was one of the first iconic figures of the medium. After achieving fame as the co-creator and star of the British version of The Office, Gervais's podcast was hugely popular in England and the United States throughout its five "seasons". Along with Stephen Merchant (his comedy partner and co-creator of The Office), Gervais interviews the third member of the group, sound engineer Karl Pilkington, on various topics from the deeply philosophical to the hopelessly mundane, then makes fun of his invariably bizarre answers. For his part, Pilkington provides an extremely unique perspective on the world. For example, "You've never seen a fat worm, have you?" (on swimming)"We came from the sea originally, now we're going back in it. Don't go in it, unless you're in a boat," and "I wish my tie had a pocket on it." Again, there are no longer new episodes of this podcast, but they are all available on itunes and rickygervais.com.
The Best Show with Tom Scharpling: Tom Scherpling is a writer and producer for the television show Monk, but is probably best known for his radio work with comedy partner Jon Wurster. The Best Show is a 3 hour weekly radio show broadcast on New Jersey's WFMU. Unlike your average radio show, however, this one takes its time. The host feels no pressure to fill every moment with wacky quips or cheap jokes. Rather, it builds over time to become a very rewarding piece of long-form comedy. The unique form of the show is often described as a hybrid of traditional radio show and a loving parody of traditional radio shows. Scharpling hosts and Wurster calls in as different characters, including Timmy von Trimble (a two inch racist), Philly Boy Roy (a young hoodlum), and members of various ficional small-time rock bands. Most of the callers are citizens of a fictional town called Newbridge, NJ, an incredibly detailed place created by Scharpling and Wurster over years of collaboration. That's the parody part; the traditional part comes in the form of actual callers telling stories, asking questions, and making requests. The Best Show also features guests from time to time, usually musicians of comedians. The more episodes you listen to, the more you will get out of them and the more you will appreciate the extraordinary talent with which Scharpling and Wurster create these detailed characters. Again, this show can be heard live on New Jersey's WFMU and worldwide on the Internet, or recent episodes can be downloaded as podcasts on itunes.