Lou Cypher
The Tokin' White Guy
In July, stand-up comedy juggernaut Netflix announced that it was bringing together comedians from around the world for a global "comedy event series" set to launch sometime in 2019. A whopping 47 comics hailing from 13 different regions were included as a part of the announcement, including American comics like Nicole Byer, British stand-ups like Nish Kumar and Australian performers like Nazeem Hussain.
Today, the streaming giant gave a name and a release date to the massive series. It's called Comedians of the World and it's set to debut on New Year's Day, which falls on a Tuesday.
In a new press release, Netflix declared "there's no excuse needed to stay indoors and get too comfortable with the international language of laughter" the morning after New Year's Eve. "The groundbreaking series will feature a range of stand-up specials from comedians diverse in style, gender and ethnicity, taped in eight languages from around the world," the release added, and as is custom with most original streaming programming, "all episodes will drop in one go."
Compared to everything else that's been happening in the stand-up comedy world (mostly thanks to Netflix and streaming), Comedians of the World is a very significant feat. To make it happen, the platform's comedy division had to organize set tapings at the most recent Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal, along with other festivals and performances in São Paolo, Mexico City, Mumbai, Berlin and Amsterdam. That's a lot of comedians, audiences, venues and film crews for one series.
Yet as many detractors of the current comedy boom will no doubt ask, "Is this too much?"Forty-seven individual half-hour sets is a lot of material to crunch through, as its totals nearly 24 hours of stand-up. If Comedians of the World was a sitcom, then its New Year's Day debut would amount to two standard seasons' worth of episodes -- or over three seasons' worth, if the total episode counts per season were less than 20.
Obviously, something like Comedians of the World is not meant to be binged in one go, and with so many different comics representing such a wide variety of languages and cultures, trying to binge it all would be folly. It's not all going to thread together like a coherent season of television. What's more, viewers who happen to tune in on New Year's Day or after might do so just because they enjoy Byer's quips on Nailed It! or Kumar's appearances on Mock the Week.
Putting this much stand-up in one place is also about discovery. As Lisa Nishimura, vice president of original documentary and comedy, said in July's press release, "Few things are better than discovering a new comedian you love. With this event, we're creating a true comedy festival experience for our members where they can scour the globe from home to find some of the freshest voices in comedy." In other words, while audiences may initially check it out to watch comics they already know, there's a good chance they'll find something new.
Here's the full list of talent participating in Comedians of the World:
United States
Neal Brennan
Chris D'Elia
Nicole Byer
Nick Swardson
Australia and New Zealand
Joel Creasey
Urzila Carlson
Nazeem Hussain
Cal Wilson
Quebec
Louis-José Houde
François Bellefeuille
Katherine Levac
Adib Alkhalidey
Canada
Ivan Decker
DeAnne Smith
K. Trevor Wilson
Dave Merheje
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrew...up-comedy-special-new-years-day/#35266342dc75
Theres more listed in the link from europe and africa, but i just included the list of English speaking comedians. Will be cool to see.
Chris Delia and Neal Brennan are fucking hysterical. Nick Swardson is hit or miss for me, but should be cool to see.
