James McCann: Australian (Adelaide-born) stand-up comedian, full name James Donald Forbes McCann. A devout Catholic father of three who moved his family to the US chasing a comedy career and got passed at the Comedy Mothership in Austin.
What this episode covers
McCann recounts his improbable path to American comedy: he uprooted his wife and three kids from Adelaide for a Catholic podcast job that fired him on arrival, leaving him broke and terrified in Steubenville, Ohio before stumbling into Austin's comedy scene. He and Rogan compare the open American comedy ecosystem to Australia's gatekept, festival-driven system that they argue strangles talent. The conversation sprawls into hunting and wolves, homelessness and Skid Row, the corruption of media and political institutions, and a long thread of cultural and political tangents. A major recurring theme is anxiety about AI taking jobs, controlling society, and even replacing human relationships. It closes on showbiz history, the craft of stand-up, and a candid Bill Cosby discussion.
Recommended on this episode
Looper
Rian Johnson
“And I loved Looper. I thought Looper was fantastic. I hated that movie.”— Joe Rogan
Gone Girl
David Fincher
“Did you see Gone Girl? ... He was excellent. Yeah, he's great. I wish that movie like eight times. Fucking awesome.”— Joe Rogan
Australian Survivor
Network Ten
“We only Australian Survivor, which is I think the world's finest.”— James McCann
Pushing Boulder
Mark Normand
“Pushing Boulder is what it's called. ... It's really good, dude. And it for a comic, you know, it's it's really fun.”— Joe Rogan
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Black Rifle Coffee
Black Rifle Coffee Company
“we'll go and hunt with a few of my friends from archery country. Shout out to Tyler. Uh and my friend Evan from Black Rifle Coffee.”— Joe Rogan
Knives Out
Rian Johnson
“Daniel Craig. Knives Out, he plays a gay guy. Yeah, that's right.”— Joe Rogan
Milk
Gus Van Sant
“Like like in Milk. They don't get a gay guy to play that role. They get a straight guy to be gay for it.”— James McCann
Game of Thrones
HBO
“a feminist show that no one thinks of as a feminist show is how is Game of Thrones. ... it's a completely feminist show.”— Joe Rogan
American Fiction
Cord Jefferson
“American Fiction is a book about a It's a black author who doesn't want to be considered a black author.”— James McCann
Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos
“It was good. It was Stahvi was in that and Emma was the guy who made the Lobster ... in the same vein of like White Lotus.”— James McCann
The Shawshank Redemption
Frank Darabont
“Like Shawshank Redemption was a flop and then years later ... It was a great movie, too.”— Joe Rogan
Comedian
Jerry Seinfeld
“Like that Jerry Seinfeld comedian documentary is the perfect I mean, he I mean, they're both still doing it.”— Joe Rogan
Big reveals from this episode
- McCann reveals he was fired from a Catholic podcast job the day he arrived in the US, stranding his family broke in snowy Ohio.
- Rogan claims the trans 'social phenomenon' in schools dropped off noticeably the moment Elon Musk bought Twitter.
- Rogan argues homeless-services workers are incentivized to keep the crisis going because that's how they make a living.
- Rogan lays out his theory that closeted gay men hide it to become political and Hollywood leading men.
- McCann says an Australian network rejected his solo special as 'too white, too male' and demanded he find diverse comics to package with it.
- They cite news that the FBI/DOJ charged the Southern Poverty Law Center with secretly funding extremist groups.
- Rogan predicts AI will control the grid and internet within a year and crack all encryption.
- Discussion that actors in Hollywood knew about Bill Cosby drugging women back in the 1990s.
Worth remembering
- Steubenville, Ohio was the hometown of Dean Martin and connected to the early Wu-Tang Clan story.
- Wild pigs are so numerous in Texas that a newly opened highway caused mass car crashes with pigs that had never seen cars.
- Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone in the 1990s dropped the elk population to about 40% of its former level.
- Skid Row in Los Angeles officially covers roughly 50 to 54 city blocks.
- About 1,600 German scientists were brought to the US under Operation Paperclip after WWII.
- An average 1980 Tonight Show episode drew 6 to 10 million viewers, then a huge share of the country.
- Spartan soldiers practiced intercrural sex so they could still fight beside each other the next day.
- The phrase 'neither confirm nor deny' originated from questions about a recovered sunken Russian submarine.
- Bill Cosby joked about a 'special barbecue sauce' that made people 'huggy-buggy' in an actual Cosby Show episode.