To promote her latest comedy special, Iliza Shlesinger recently visited New York City, bookending her tourstop with two sets at a local comedy club. As of this writing, she is in town, but probably no longer by the time you read this.
As she was wrapping her first set on Monday—which was great, by the way—she dropped a plug for her special:
After this special releases at midnight tonight, I’ll have seven hours of comedy out there. You’re welcome.
More than anything else about her performance, I’ve thought about that line in particular… and not because it was near the end. Not sure I got the line exactly right, but that was the gist.
In high school, my parents took me to see George Carlin during his 90s and 00s renaissance. Some of the best bits he read directly from his notebook.
“No, I’m not trying things out on you guys, I just haven’t committed these jokes to memory yet.”
Other bits flopped catastrophically.
Some attendees laughed anyway; not out of politeness, but because to them, if George Carlin was making a joke, it must be funny.
Those types of audience members have got to be the worst for a comic, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
During Iliza’s Monday set, she didn’t read any of her jokes; although, she did keep a notebook open on her stool, glancing at it briefly in between bits. And despite similar protests to the contrary a la George Carlin, she was most certainly trying out new material. This was particularly funny because she joked that when people say things that should be obvious, it brings their assertions into question. (e.g., “These are all my jokes!” <– wait, were they at risk of not being yours?)
Some throwaways landed, but maybe not at the magnitude she was expecting. She would then pivot with meta commentary like, “that joke kills in the midwest, but not as well here for the New York sophisticate” that shook out some laughs from the more reticent among us.
For my part, I love it when comedians try stuff. Standup is a conversation—it doesn’t work in a vacuum. To my knowledge, no comic has released a taped set without a live studio audience, nor has any audio technician thought not to directly mix in real audience laughter.
This sentiment is parodied in Bo Burnham’s “Don’t Want To Know” as he records himself audience-free in a studio apartment for Inside.)
Also, have you seen a live sitcom with the laugh track removed? It is awkward.
We first saw her live in Burlington, VT as she happened to be performing while we were in town. This is a lie. We like spending time in Vermont and make up excuses to go on the regular. When some one-liners didn’t land as hard as she expected, she’d quip with a, “you Vermonters are so nice—this joke kills in New York”.
I’m no Iliza die hard, but I am a contemporary (n.b., “Elder Millenial”) and remember seeing her first special—what was it, a decade ago? If one correctly assumes her first special didn’t materialize out of nothing, it tracks that Iliza takes two years to render every hour of comedy special.
| Name | Release Date | Runtime |
|---|---|---|
| War Paint | September 1, 2013 | 63 minutes |
| Freezing Hot | January 23, 2015 | 71 minutes |
| Confirmed Kills | September 23, 2016 | 77 minutes |
| Elder Millennial | July 24, 2018 | 72 minutes |
| Unveiled | November 19, 2019 | 78 minutes |
| Hot Forever | October 18, 2022 | 58 minutes |
| A Different Animal | March 11, 2025 | ? minutes |
Two years. One hour.
One of my favorite parts of her act is that while she pokes fun at everyone, she doesn’t punch down on anyone. Getting this right—laughing with rather than laughing at—takes a lot of work, patience, and trying stuff out to find that line.
I think it’s one of the reasons she’s as successful as she is.
To produce a comedy special (an hour+ of original material that’s widely accessible) it has to be tested to discover what works. This takes a tremendous amount of sampling—which means traveling—and effort.
After this special releases at midnight tonight, I’ll have seven hours of comedy out there. You’re welcome.
I don’t know if “hours of comedy special” is her standard metric or if it was a throwaway line unworthy of further thought.
Either way, the line caught me off-guard and I’ve been thinking about it all day.
Iliza’s a comic who, in 2025 alone, has thirty+ tour dates, a weekly one-hour podcast, and a promotional tour, and if previous years are any indication, an upcoming a TV and/or movie. Between all of that, it has taken her over fourteen years—over 5,000 calendar days!—to create one work day’s worth of top tier comedy that meets standard.
As I think about my own efforts (this piece alone took 4 hours to write and edit, inclusive of a few failed side quests), it is helpful to put that top-quality output ratio into perspective. Among other ideas, I tried to find a list of all hour+ standup comedy specials that have ever been produced and then work out how Iliza’s output compares to other prolific comics; but, this fell outside of my data munging budget of 30 minutes. Alas.
I hope some of my work is or turns out to be world-class, but I understand that most of it isn’t.
While a few of Iliza’s jokes did not quite hit the mark, she was able to keep stride, call it out, and salvage a bombed moment into a wholly satisfying set.
Quality work takes time, missteps are part of the process, and (with practice) toeing that line can seem effortless.
Fourteen+ years to produce seven hours of comedy.
Thanks for the reminder, Iliza.