In 2014, Jerrod Carmichael burst out on to TV with his first televised stand-up appearance being an HBO special. That might be the only time that has ever happened in the history of comedy. From there, Jerrod got The Carmichael Show on NBC, a deal with the cool kids at A24, another HBO stand-up special, and a separate docu-special called Home Videos.

While that’s quite the resume, Jerrod’s name hasn’t popped up like it used to 7 or 8 years ago. He’s taken more to producing and development with such things as Ramy rather than putting forth his own individual projects. Also, you don’t see Jerrod going up the same way that you used to (i.e. almost any given night of the week in LA).  We have seen him jump on shows here and there in 2019, but it was, in a word, strange since he has seemed so far removed from doing stand-up the way he used to.

So, there’s almost a similar mystery to this new HBO special, Rothaniel, that espouses Jerrod being as honest as can be as when his first special came about. Also, he’s fully seated on a folding chair, not even a stool, which suggests something a little less like stand-up and something much more confessional and, shall we say, “dramedic”.

In any case, we’re sure Jerrod has something up his sleeve considering he’s releasing Rothaniel on HBO on April Fools’ Day at 9PM. You can get a tiny, tiny look at it in the announcement teaser here.