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You thought we were going to get away from politics by talking comedy, but I gotta tell you I have bad news. They go ahead an you couldn't You couldn't be more wrong, because comedy has played a big part in this election, especially in recent weeks, from Tony Henricliffe's floating Island of Garbage comment at Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally to Kamala Harris's appearance on Saturday Night Live
on Saturday. Not to mention, whoever wins the election, Carol will most likely be Can I say this is the butt of many jokes over the next four years.
It's a given, It's a given right and we look forward to what you sign up for, equal right, no political divide on that. We like, appreciate the humor that comes in. Our next guest is a perfect one to wrap up our special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We've really been focusing on the elections today. Caroline Hirst is the founder of course of Caroline's on Broadway, operated from
nineteen eighty one to twenty twenty two. Also founded and produces the annual New York Comedy Festival, which he launch back in two thousand and four, kicks off this week. Includes names such as Jedd Apatow.
David l Is going to be there, yeah, britt Miggs.
Brittany Brave, Bill Maher, Tracy Morgan, and a lot more.
That's quite a line up.
It's quite a lot up. And that's just like I was looking at the website. That's like a tiny fraction of who's going to be there. Carolyn Hirsch joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Welcome back, Thank you. It's like a nice tradition to have you in. But one thing that's thinking about this here is that it's you know, election day tomorrow, so.
Well we purposely had the festival after the election.
Did you really have something?
Oh yeah, you can't get in the middle of that makes sense, right, Yeah.
Talk a little bit about that though. I mean a lot of the comedians you have that who Caroly and I just mentioned politics front and center for them, and I think a guy like Bill Maher, I mean, he's all over it.
Can't wait to see Bill.
I think I think he gave a little promo last week on his show about the New York comedy fings did he did.
He's been. You know, he's Bill's kind of like a fixture. Last year he took a year off, but you know, he's back again and he's been in the festival for a number of years now and we always usually have it, like actually one year we didn't have. We had it before and I think it was before Donald Trump got into office, and he had some words to say about that. So but you know, Bill's been. I have to say, you know, Bill's been this guy that is really center. He call sings out the way he sees them, and
I think he's very honest. I mean, I love watching him, and I think Bill's got a bigger career now than he's ever had.
Well, Okay, so that's so interesting to say that, because one thing that's different now that he's doing is this Club Random podcast, which is so different than his normal show. Right, it's a weekly show on HBO is what he's known for, but he has this podcast that he like just sits down with people and does these long interviews. Like seems like everybody's doing this now.
I think, Yeah. Listen podcast is is the talk radio of today. So they're very interesting, interesting people. We have lots of podcasts in the festival that kind of like, you know, so how did he get made? You know, which is great, which is a group of people that got together one night at a Paul party and said, hey, how did that ever get made for TV? And they created a pod?
People love that. Well wait, so wait, so when you think about what you want to do with the festival and you've been doing for such a long time, and I'm sure there's evolution and there's obviously you know, the iconic comedians you want. I'm sure our new voices tell us how you think about it every year?
Well, we we think about it like the day after we like, you know, the middle of this November coming up, we'll think about next year. But it takes about a year to get everybody kind of in line and between the schedules and this and that. So you know, we have close to three hundred shows around New York City with you know, two hundred or more comedians that are around,
so you know, we have something for everyone. I mean, you know, we're at the greatest venues of the world, you know, the Beacon Theater, Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, and it's an array of great comedians and we have. We're kicking it off on Thursday night with a tribute to Joan Rivers. This is something her daughter Melissa put together and it's called Dead Funny and it's all star tribute
to Joan and it benefits God's love. We deliver And there are plenty of comedians on there like Nicki, Glasier, Mattato Lane, Randy Rainbow, Michelle Batteaux, Rachel Branahan who played Marvelous Missus Mayzell, which is kind of a you know, look, there are two hit shows on TV today. They were The Marvelous Missus Mazell and Hacks and they both kind of centered around the life of Dry Wavers. Right, So here you go, ca.
Yeah, which is really good. Well, but it's also a combination. You've got a lot of musician Bruce Springsteen.
We have Bruce, but Bruce is part of our big event because why stand up for Heroes love it. It's something that Bruce.
I mean, I never questioned Bruce being anywhere, but.
He's been on the show for it's our eighteenth year of doing Stand Up for Heroes. He's been on the show for seventeen years. He took one year off when he was doing his Broadway show, and he's been a constant there and he's very involved with that issue and raising these funds. And we have a stellar lineup this year and.
It is It is the twentieth annual New York Comedy Festival, and the Stand Up for Here, like.
Stand Up for Here is eighteen years, eighteen years, and it's you know, over this time, we've raised over one hundred million dollars the veteran causes. And I just went over. I'm on the board of the Woodard's Foundation. I just went over a number of grants. We get ten million dollars in grants. This year. When there was a hurricane in Tampa, we were there helping out the vents. So we're like action packed, vetted the best way you could
possibly be. And this money is well spent with the veterans.
I get to say, with veterans, I mean nothing funny about it that, you know, we have individuals in our country who go over and fight and fight for freedom and to protect other countries, to protect Americans and American assets, and come home and then it's like they're forgotten, and it's you know, I'm not going to get political, but it is great to see the efforts that you do and others to help them out.
Thank you.
You mentioned Bruce Springsteen, but Jim Gaffagan, Nora Jones, Questlove, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Mark Norman, Yeah, Mark NORMANTERI.
Yeah, it's a great line up. It's gonna be What are you looking forward to?
You said, you said, yeah.
I go to you know, get to see Bill. You know, Bill started with me in my first club on eighth Avenue, so we've known each other for years. I always excited to see him, to hear what he has to say. I'm excited for.
Like, did you know Bill was going to do well or did you think, like what do you like? What is it when you see somebody or you know this this person's gonna be Bill.
Bill had great stand up he did forty years ago, yees, so he was he was great at that and stayed with it and then politically incorrect got him to where he is today. So you know, he just was there tenacity and stayed with it and and and did great. But we have a lot of people that have worked at the club for so many years, like Tracy Morgan, JB. Smooth, Miss pat Is at Town Hall. Also, Adam Ray is playing Doctor Phil at the Beacon Theater. Jibooki Young White
is also at the hard Rock. The hard Rock is playing a big part in the festival. We have shows there practically every night at the Hardrock Hotel. It's great venues that that's there. We have a tribute to Gilbert Gottfried that's there, So it's it's kind of taken the place of the Caroline Space and we're doing all of those shows there at the hard Rock.
We're gonna talk more about Carolines in just a minute, but I do want to get you to weigh in on the election stuff and just like the way that comedy has played in just over the last week. I mean, if you think about what happened at Madison Square Garden with Tony Hinchcliffe in the way that that comment from him just dominated the news cycle. Now there's some polling that actually indicates that it caused people potential Trump voters
to move away from Trump. Did you think we'd be talking about like a comic who's known for roasts, no, in fact, to the president.
You know what you call it is like a bad booking, you know, just like a bad booking and it shouldn't have happened. But then again, you hire Tony, you have to know what comes with Tony. It's like, you know, there's no filter, so you really can't You really can't filter a comedian like that, as you know from the Tom Brady roast. I mean, he was really out there, so you have to know, you know, so you know, the person that booked him on the show.
Maybe not something you would suggest for a political closing.
I would if I was in charge of that, but the comedians never, I would never put him up there.
So what type of comedian would you put up?
Well, you know we had we had we had Jim Gaffigan that was at the Al Smith dinner. Yeah, and that Yeah, I mean he made points but a little more, you know, and he's tasteful. You know, he's a conservative, but he made points a different way. So there's a way to do it. So you have to know, you know, you have to know how to book it. So Tony was not the right person to be there at that time.
So can we assume that the festival, since it'll be after the election, that there'll be a lot of politically there all?
Right?
Close up on Caroline, are you kidding me with this question.
I mean, well, what.
Do you make of what I know?
I know? All right, So I asked the obvious.
I asked the I mean, I watched the late shows at night, and it's not a night that doesn't go by. Between Kimball and Colbert. It just doesn't stop. It's like I have to walk out of the room until the monologues over. It just it doesn't stop. So God knows what the next week is going to be.
Well, and then you have what you're coming off a weekend where you know, SNL and Kamala Harris appears in a skit and I know political candidates have done that in the past, but you just think about how important it is in terms of like reaching different photos.
Oh absolutely absolutely. I mean that's the way to reach young people.
From a comedy. From a comedy perspective, though, Does SNL still carry the weight that it once did?
I think we're all talking about it, so I guess it does. Yeah.
Really, yeah, interesting, because I wasn't expecting you to say that. I was expecting you to say, Okay, well, you know, maybe podcast, YouTube and you know, these sort of things that get people TikTok, even it does. We talked about with you in the past.
But they repurpose everything from SNL goes onto all of those sites the next day, so that's where they connect with young people. They really do. I mean, I think I just read that SNL did a big deal right now with TikTok. There's a lot of stuff from SNL on there, so it gets repurposed and then it gets seen and it gets everybody just talking about it, so that when the news knows that Kamala Harris goes onto that, we all talk about it the next day. So it's a it's a good booking for her.
Well go ahead. I was gonna say, what about it being a springboard for young comedians in this day and age. I mean, he used to be on SNL and that's where so many legends got their start. Well, you know, Bill.
Murr is coming up and hosting this weekend. Bill Burr started out of Carolines as an opening act, and we were the first people to ever headline him in New York City through the New York Comedy Festival, which is.
Pretty didn't I I thought? I also read that Billy Crystal SNL passed on him and then he did you did care and that he liked and then ended up on.
That was probably, I believe in nineteen eighty four eighty five, Dick Ebrisol came in Lord Michaels was not producing. Then Dick Eprisol came in and put him on, and then Billy just exploded again. Yeah, it's just kind of interesting. Carolines was like a good luck chure on for a lot of people.
So so how do you think about bringing it back in some form?
Well, I think we want to bring it back in a bigger way, more of a big event that might happen.
Or something or than that.
Yeah, she looks guilty.
She looks like she's got something cooking. Said here a year ago. You sat here a year ago and said you'll have something for us next time you're here. It so that we're still working on it.
It was still working on it.
When you say bigger, you mean outside of New York too, maybe.
Yeah, I mean, like you know, Caroline's like as the brand taking bigger and just outside of the four Broadway walls, it'll be in other people's walls.
One thing that we've we've talked about at Bloomberg Business Week is this idea that Joe Rogan is trying to make Austin happen as a center for comedy like it happened in LA and New York. Do you buy that?
I think he's dot a good job of bringing a lot of comedians there. I don't know if it'll be the centerpiece of comedy, but he's bringing you know, the New York the New York comedians, and the LA comedians and the Dave Chappelle's to go in there. But you know, at New York is where it's at. New York is where it's at. New York is bigger than LA for comedy.
So how do you think about comedy and like the evolution of it? I mean, I grew up with a dad. I'm trying to think the roasts with like Dean Martin and so like just and they still continue. But does it really change in terms of what makes people laugh?
No, I think it's you know, it's it's what makes you laugh? Is is the common thread of the joke because it happened to you, it happened to me, ha ha ha Is that funny? Yeah? So that's really why we all love comedy because it brings us to gather and way to enjoy something. And that's really why it makes you feel good and it's a stress reliever. And you know we talk about loving to laugh. With comedy, you can take some of the bad news. It could be repurposed in another way.
Yeah, so you're gonna be laughing on Wednesday.
Yeah, I'll be laughing Wednesday.
If it's a day that ends. And why we'll be laughing.
She real.
Indeed, good luck, good luck, good luck at the festival and we want to check it out. Twentieth Annual New York Comedy Festival this November, November ninth, right.
Yea, oh no, no, no November. It starts on the eighth through the seventh through the eighteenth. Got it.