the thing with this one that's gonna be coming out is it is gonna be different than any comedy special you've ever seen. It is part documentary, part special, where I interviewed over a dozen comedians about their own journey with anxiety and how they deal with mental health it is that interspersed into the standup routine. From a secret location in room 100 of 540 Jack Gibbs Boulevard. This is craft. I'm your host, Doug Dangler.
Comedian Steve Hofstetter will appear at the Columbus Funny Bone on Tuesday, July 15th. Hofstetter, has over a billion views on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, and his book Ginger Kid, was a top five pick on Amazon and debuted number one in its category. He's written for Sports Illustrated, the NHL Maxim and New York Times among others. Welcome back to Columbus and Craft Steve Hofstetter. \Well, thank you so much for having me. I always have a special affinity for Columbus.
smaller reason because the funny bone is where I recorded one of my specials. Bigger reason my wife's from there. Oh, okay. from Columbus, proper or from an area around Columbus Around Columbus. Okay. Pickerington. Oh, yes. I grew up in New York City and I always get very annoyed. When people are like oh, I'm from New York. What part Connecticut? I always get annoyed when people do that, but I specifically do that with 'em. Oh, my wife's from Columbus. 'cause she basically is Yeah.
Well I've lived, within two 70 and outside two 70 for the last 30 years, so I know what you mean. it's sometimes not worth telling people, So tell me about this show that you're gonna present on July 15th. What is gonna happen? So, I'm excited about it. Most of the content is gonna be for the special that I just recorded, that I haven't released yet. which is called Kill the Butterflies. despite what some comments on social media think, I'm not murdering butterflies. It's a metaphor.
Metaphors are good. a lot of it's about anxiety, my own, journey with that and mental health and trying to de-stigmatize that just looking at that in a funny way. you've got a large and devoted following on YouTube, which was where I think you'll be dropping the special. Yes. tell me about how you've seen that channel evolve in the time that you've been posting on it. Because it's gone through a ton of changes. while you've been an active participant there.
if my YouTube boom was about two years earlier, I would be a very rich person. But unfortunately, my boom came a little bit after the YouTube payday. but I still have almost a million subscribers. the really cool thing is that gives me freedom. It allows me to play where I want, when I want. and it's not just YouTube. I have almost a million on Facebook. 350,000 on Instagram, et cetera. Reaching people directly.
I no longer need some guy in a suit to tell people that they think I'm funny because People can just decide that for themselves. It's great. Okay. so when you go to YouTube and think, okay, I'm gonna put my new special here, that also cascades over into all the rest, I assume. Yes. the thing with this one that's gonna be coming out is it is gonna be different than any comedy special you've ever seen.
It is part documentary, part special, where I interviewed over a dozen comedians about their own journey with anxiety and how they deal with. Mental health it is that interspersed into the standup routine. you basically get a behind the scenes of , why do people think that this part of this special could be important? Mm-hmm. And so it's a way to both watch comedy and a documentary at the same time. Okay, cool.
It reminds me a little bit, your description, of John Mullany presenting about, Robin Williams. And he had this thing, I think it was Rob, when it was, where he said, not all comics are self-destructive. and this is something he wanted to get away from. Did you find that to also sort of be the case when you were talking to people about their, anxiety and being a performer? I interviewed comedians that I am, friends or friendly with, and I tend to be.
friends with the people who aren't the broken toys. as someone who never had a significant drug problem, I don't gravitate toward those that do. so it might be a little skewed, a little self-selecting in that sense. I do think that sense of humor is a defense mechanism. You have to go through something to be funny that something can be, rock bottom being bullied or feeling like you don't fit in. whatever that something is, that's where a sense of humor comes from.
Speaking of, medical stuff, you've got a recent post on YouTube, that, went up after an audience member collapsed from a medical condition and was revived by EMTs. Tell me about going through that and the aftermath of it because it looked like it was really, impactful. Yes, it was extremely harrowing at the time.
It was almost 12 minutes, from the time that I saw something wrong to the time that we were able to get back to the show And that is a very long time to sit there in virtual silence where you just hope things are gonna be okay. I was really proud and I said it in the clip that I've always said the thing I'm proudest of in my career is who my fans are, the type of people that they are. And that was absolutely on display while that was happening.
a couple people rushed to help immediately once we identified that there were some medical personnel in the audience, we found a couple doctors and a nurse and we were just like, go to it. And everybody else just kind of kept to themselves. There weren't people trying to interject themselves into this. I said from stage, I was like, if you are not directly involved in helping right now, please stay seated. And everybody did.
And it was a theater of 550 people people were just waiting, hoping, and once the professionals did their job, thankfully I have friends in Denver and some of them were at the show and so that's who I asked to call 9 1 1. that way I had a conduit that I trusted on the phone and, had my dog with me. that helped too because the other comics who were on the show, I, went to the side of the stage and I was like, get, get Daubert right now.
Like, get him outta the green room because we are going to take the stage after this. we need something to distract everyone from what just happened. Mm-hmm. So, it helped a lot that I have an adorable dog. Yeah. Yeah. Is it a chihuahua? he's a min pin mixed with, I don't know what else He's part Doberman, part shrink Ray. He just looks like we took him to a dog park and there was a real doberman there and it was like, oh, here's Daubert and here's Super Daubert. Mm-hmm. he looks like a teen.
Little Noman. Yeah. You know, that's funny. when you said that, it occurs to me, I've met a variety of, comics with dogs and, sometimes they would be bringing them to interviews and things like that. One of them chewed on a set when I was doing tv and I was like, I don't think that's a great idea. No, you gotta make sure if you're gonna bring your dog with you, that they will be well-behaved enough to be there.
Yeah. So, I guess you need a, carry along, size like Dalbert as opposed to, your German Shepherds Well, yeah. Just for the travel aspect of it. You know, just for taking up room in the van. the idea that he can just cuddle up next to me in the seat instead of needing his own. I think that's very important. So you also have a, well-known reputation for, exchanging with hecklers.
Besides the medical emergency and the hecklers, what has been some of your most unexpected moments, some of your most memorable moments on stage that, you talk about with, other comics? What kinds of things really stand out in your career that you did not expect? someone proposed at a show. they ran it by me first, thankfully. Otherwise that would come a little. But it wasn't to you? No, no. Not to me. that's happened also, but not seriously.
someone reached out and, said that he and his girlfriend were big fans and he wanted to propose to her at the show, and I was like, yeah, let's make it happen. Mm-hmm. one of the moments was, I was in Casper, Wyoming on four 20, I mean, I'm sober. I've been sober over 20 years now, and I had never done anything until recently when I started taking edibles for anxiety. just to help me sleep. And so I had some with me and, I know that this is on record in Wyoming. It's not legal, but here we go.
So I said to the crowd, the setup was terrible for a show. It was a bar that said they had a separate area for the show, and the separate area was literally fenced off by a piece of caution tape. there were just loud people at the end of the bar. And it sucked because here are all these, ticket buyers who paid to come see a show and they can barely hear it. I always go up first in my shows. I go up, I welcome everybody set the table for the openers. And then I come back from my man set later.
So I went up first and I said, Hey, it's four 20. This is a weird environment for a show. I've never done a show in any altered state, even when I was drinking. Would you like to see that? And the crowd went crazy. And I was like, okay, well, we'll try. So I came back, for my set and I was doing my set like normal. Everything was fine. And one guy got really upset at one joke I was doing a joke about how AI isn't gonna replace us anytime soon.
And it's basically a joke about like, technology isn't great. Mm-hmm. Like the first day an Alexa wakes up, she's gonna have a bad day 'cause she's gonna have to learn what it's like to talk to Alexa. And he got so mad at that and I don't know if he lost his job to a robot or whatever it was. But this guy was very upset and it was hilarious because I couldn't be mad because I was baked outta my mind and I was just laughing and giggling and I was like, of all the shows. That you pick to do this?
I'm unarmed and it was very fun. the comics who I tour with are buddies of mine and, we've toured a million different places they got a real kick out of seeing unarmed Steve deal with a heckler. Maybe, one of the few jobs where you can do that. yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of jobs where people do anyway, especially like when weed was first legalized in Denver, like in Colorado, you couldn't get a sandwich there. I walked into a Jimmy John's and I was like, Hey, can I get a sandwich?
And the guy just goes, oh man, I should get a sandwich. You have that power, sir. Yeah. Well, it's legal now in Ohio. And I've been able to get sandwiches most places I've gone. So we're more responsible here than Colorado. Well, also it's been legal in Ohio's border states for quite some time, so I think people got used to it there's always this Ohio, Michigan rivalry. when it was legal in Michigan and not in Ohio, there were so many people in Ohio be like, look, we hate Michigan.
But also you wanna, should we take a run up there? For a week or so? A week? for 15 minutes. Yeah. Immediately run back. so you've been a comic, for a number of years. How do you keep it fresh for yourself? What, are the techniques that keep you looking forward to going to work? I mean, you find new stuff you wanna talk about. there are comedians who will do the same act for 20 years and I don't understand how they do it. And they're like, well, you know, it kills. And it's like, yeah, it does.
But I also would never want to be one of those one hit wonders performing the same song at a county fair for the rest of my life. Mm-hmm. we are at our core, supposed to be artists, so be an artist and continue to create art. And that's is, it's as simple as that. I did an hour on losing my father, and that was one of the most difficult things I've ever written.
It took me seven years to write that hour because I had to wait long enough that I could still connect to the material, but I wasn't in the middle of grieving while I was talking about it. to me, talking about something like that was important talking about this anxiety journey is important and the next hour I'm writing is about potentially starting a family. that's important. so you just find the stuff you connect with. Steve Hofstetter, thank you very much for talking to me today.
I really appreciate it and looking forward to you being at the Columbus Funny Bone on Tuesday, July 15th. People can go to Steve Hofsteder, that's H-O-F-S-T-E-T-T-E r.com for, all the information thank you very much. Thank you. The Bone is one of my favorite clubs in the world, and if people wanna see whether or not my wife's family thinks I'm funny, come to the show. Well, no, that is a risk. I hope people will take you up on that and, have them in a certain area.
Seeing wife's family, and just see what happens. Yeah. See if they laugh, see if they laugh, see what stokes they like if they don't. All of this has really been a bad idea. Alright. Thanks much. Thank you. For more information from my guests, visit www crafttheshow. com. This is Doug Dangler. Until next time be creative.