At Netflix Is a Joke Fest, Netflix Was Often the Joke
The post At Netflix Is a Joke Fest, Netflix Was Often the Joke appeared first on Consequence.
Over the course of Netflix Is a Joke Fest 2024, I attended eight individual shows and also caught 11 different sets at the Outside Joke space. There was a ton of stuff I missed, but I did feel like I experienced a good cross-section of the festival’s offerings, from big-name headliners at venues like the Hollywood Bowl and Dolby Theater to a podcast recording at Largo to a 100-seat black box theater in East L.A.
Not all of these shows were raging successes: One got derailed by a last-minute cast change and a person with Tourette’s yelling inappropriate statements during the entire performance. One opener I saw got openly combative with the crowd before bringing on the headliner. And a few comics came to the stage with material that still needed more development (even John Mulaney acknowledged that he needed to move around a few parts of his set for future performances).
Yet my biggest takeaway from taking all this in was a new understanding what Netflix means to the comedy ecosystem these days, and the complicated relationship every level of comedian has with major companies like this.
For some of these shows, it was largely business as usual. That said, How Did This Get Made?, Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas, and June Diane Raphael’s podcast specializing in mocking bad movies, told the audience during one show that they were asked to feature movies that are currently streaming on Netflix — and they said no.
To be clear, it sounded like that was more of a request than a demand, and the trio went on to cheerily tear apart the 2024 “comedy” Beautiful Wedding. But the hosts also proceeded to “threaten” audience members with expulsion if they mentioned the existence of rival streamer Hulu, before coming up with an idea for counter-programming, a festival entitled “Hulu Is Hilarious.”
The Netflix branding was impossible to escape at the Outside Joke festival hub, which for $25 (or prior purchase of a ticket to any other Netflix Is a Joke Fest show) offered full days of live comedy, along with some Netflix-branded attractions and some damn tasty food stalls. (The Impossible Meat bao became a bit of an obsession.)
Photo courtesy of Netflix
Set up in a lot by the Hollywood Palladium theater, spending time at Outside Joke did actually have a bit of a Coachella vibe, in a good way — even with just one stage, there was something really pleasant about sitting outside on a weekend afternoon and enjoying the flow of comedy. (Shade was sometimes at a premium during the earlier, sunnier portions of the day, and May in Los Angeles means chilly evenings, but the weather could have been a lot worse.)
Unfortunately, many of the comedians weren’t having a great experience. The set-up featured a large stage as well as game areas where visitors could play Netflix-themed mini-golf, ride a I Think You Should Leave-themed zip line, and ride mechanical bulls shaped like the Hormone Monsters from Big Mouth — it was that last attraction that was the most annoying to the performers, given their placement just behind the seated audience. One comedian spotted a friend of his riding one during his set, and stopped to call her out: “Grace, this is the worst possible time!”
Almost every show I saw at Outside Joke included a performer mocking the event in some way, so regularly that you almost didn’t have to check your phone for the time. “One in the afternoon,” someone would say during the first show. “Great time to do comedy.” Then, later in the afternoon, another comedian: “Nothing like doing stand-up at 4:00 p.m. in a parking lot.” Someone compared the space to the Van Nuys airport at one point. The only person I saw find some really funny off-the-cuff material on the set-up was Dave writer and stand-up Niles Abston, whose career I will now watch with great interest. (Not in a creepy Palpatine way… I think.)
Still, there were some really enjoyable performances, including a music-themed afternoon that flowed from David Wain and Ken Marino’s Middle Aged Dad Jam Band (far more bit-driven than anticipated!) to autotune-powered Morgan Jay to the always loose and charming Reggie Watts. It was my first time seeing Morgan Jay, but he attracted an impressively-sized crowd, and played a delightful game of “Smash or Pass?” with the audience.
Having a musical component seemed to make those performers feel more comfortable, perhaps because it did invoke more of a festival vibe. Music was also a key part of Fred Armisen’s show, entitled “Comedy for Musicians But Everyone Is Welcome” — Armisen had a full drum set-up as well as plenty of other instruments on hand for his musically-driven comedy, including a history of punk as defined by drumming styles (something he’s performed before).
Before Armisen’s time on stage was over, though, he did bring out Rob Lowe, John Owen Lowe, and his wife Riki Lindhome to perform a miniature play… that also became a plug for Unstable, the Netflix comedy starring the father-and-son Lowes and featuring Armisen in its upcoming second season.
Fred Armisen at Netflix Is a Joke Fest, courtesy of Netflix
Above all else, Netflix Is a Joke Fest remained true to the platform’s omnibus position in the comedy space, its 400+ artists including alt-right favorites like Shane Gillis as well as more liberal acts like Seth Rogen and Hannah Gadsby. It feels like the ultimate flex, in some ways: Netflix wielding its vast resources to bring so many different working comics together, as proof of its dominance.
And the whole time, the comedians I saw kept poking at that dominance, the way great comedians can’t resist when in the presence of potentially sacred cows and intimidating systems of power. (Nothing more sacred, in the year 2024, than a $265 billion media platform.)
“Can we even mention HBO at this festival?” one comedian on a panel show asked, after being introduced with a mention of their stand-up special for that company.
“Absolutely not,” the host immediately replied.
So a few minutes later, when asked to spell something, what did the comedian say? “H is for HBO.”
It got laughs.
At Netflix Is a Joke Fest, Netflix Was Often the Joke
Liz Shannon Miller
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