San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Podcasts aren’t laughed off anymore
The first mention of a comedy podcast on the SF Sketchfest schedule came in 2009 when Jimmy Pardo brought his “Never Not Funny” program to the San Francisco stage.
“From an artistic and programming perspective, it was kind of a nobrainer,” Sketchfest founder and programmer Janet Varney says of the first decision to allow comedy podcasts into the festival.
A decade later, more than 30 percent of the 150-plus acts taking the stage during SF Sketchfest, which returns for its 18th season Thursday, Jan. 10, through Jan. 27, will be related to podcasts — either live podcast recordings or based around a program. That’s a long way from the six sketch comedy acts that made up the comedy festival’s inaugural edition.
This year, as podcasts are in the ascendancy in the general public’s tastes and sketch comedy is practically missing from television — even as the products of sketch work land television shows — the mix at Sketchfest feels rightfully weighted toward the former.
“I think there’s enough room for all of it,” says Varney, who established the festival alongside David Owen and Cole Stratton in 2001. “There was a point at which I remember people kind of grumbling in a good-natured way but with genuine nervousness — ‘Is this going to be the next Betamax fleeting thing?’ … I feel like that time of that question has come and gone.”
Pardo agrees and has witnessed the shift firsthand.
“In the time I’ve been doing it, I’ve gone from ‘What the hell is a podcast?’ and me having to apologize for having a fake radio show, to ‘Oh yeah, my cousin has one too,’ ” Pardo says.
The podcast is, in many ways, the perfect medium for modern comedy. It’s versatile enough to encompass radio-play-style performances, improvisation and simple conversations between two or more (hopefully) interesting people on myriad topics. It Listen and subscribe to “The Big Event,” “Datebook” and other Chronicle podcasts at www.sfchronicle.com/podcasts.
can be done from home — which is important, as cities struggle to keep performance stages open to developing talents — or in studios, even out in the field. And it capitalizes on the modern tendency to want intimate connections with people while also consuming entertainment on the go.
“It’s largely the trend in comedy that everything is more about honesty, intimacy and specificity,” comedian Joseph Scrimshaw says. His “Obsessed” podcast features him talking with a guest about something — anything from a TV show to a theory on international relations — with which the guest is, well, obsessed.
“Everywhere you look in comedy, anything that’s a little more intimate, honest and vulnerable, that’s where the audience is at,” he says. “We’re in a cultural moment where people want to see behind the mask.”
But how do you translate an intimate podcast into a live event for hundreds to thousands of people?
For featured comedian Eliza Skinner, whose “Cool Playlist” creates playlists for very specific circumstances in each podcast episode with the help of her guest, that meant replacing prerecorded music with live guest karaoke.
“You’re doing a podcast, which is going right into people’s ears or cars, so it’s a more intimate conversation, and you’re speaking directly to that listener,” Skinner says. “But for a live show, you’re performing for the audience in front of you; you can’t ignore them to favor the at-home listener, so I felt comics singing songs would be more fun for people in the room.”
Those considerations are front of mind as well for those creating newer podcasts, who have learned from their predecessors. The duo behind “Traumatized,” Erin Ridgeway and Jason Apple, are scheduled to perform in front of a paying audience for the first time. The pair, who met at an advertising agency, have been creating the show for a year. All the