1. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, Blake Wexler’s pandemic fueled exodus from LA back to Philly, then releasing a humdinger of a comedy special makes our hearts here at TCB flutter. Daddy Long Legs is the debut hour special from Wexler and Blake makes the sort of first grand impression with a special that one could hope for their very first hour. Taking cues from mentor Todd Glass, Blake is an agile balance of silly and sincere and exuberant and nuanced. He doesn’t so much navigates through this hour as he jubilantly flies through it and it’s quite the ride he takes you on. Please enjoy Daddy Long Legs streaming now, for free, on YouTube, courtesy of 800 Pound Gorilla, here.
2. Nate Bargatze has added entertainment mogul to his resume with the official unveiling of his content company Nateland (Deadline). Though it’s focused on “family friendly” fare, amazing specials from Joe Zimmerman and Greg Warren produced by Nateland suggest that there is plenty to be enjoyed by adults who hate “family friendly” content.
3. Only Murders in the Building will get a fourth season, which means comedy/banjo legend Steve Martin will stay in the realm of comedy for a little longer, thank goodness.
4. John Mulaney just announced dates for a national tour running through all of November and December. If you want tickets, you better go to johnmulaney.com right now before they all sell out.
5. Vulture’s 2023 class of Comedians You Should & Will Know was finally unveiled yesterday and, in case you didn’t already know, we have something to do with it. Please go enjoy what might be the most fairly run list (we run it kind of like the MacArthur Genius Grant) of “who’s next/who to watch” in all of comedy.
6. We’ll leave you with this: if you’re wondering how commonplace parallel thought is in comedy, late night had five months off due to the WGA Strike and still managed to land many of the same jokes about the same news items on their first night back.