Tony Hinchcliffe： Cancelled for a Joke
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per minute
166.44196
Harmful content
Misogyny
12
sentences flagged
Toxicity
254
sentences flagged
Hate speech
33
sentences flagged
Summary
Tony Hinchcliffe is a stand-up comic, actor, comedian, writer, and podcaster. He has been in the public eye for over a decade, and is one of the most well-known comedians in the world. In this episode, Tony talks about his time on the hit comedy show Kill Tony, and how he was almost killed by the Chinese media.
Transcript
00:00:00.060
Give it up for the one and only Tony Hinchcliffe.
00:00:07.800
I think you guys are in for a little bit of a treat.
00:00:10.300
So here's the exclusive is that obviously it was a coordinated attack.
00:00:14.260
Obviously he's in cahoots with the Chinese media.
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00:00:34.060
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Tony, so we had, when we had Uncle Roger on the show, he was like, it's so good to be on the show that you do when you get cancelled.
00:02:02.460
We haven't really talked much about it and we were hanging out the other day and it's something we really wanted to discuss with you.
00:02:10.120
Well, I mean, this was in May of 2021 and I was doing a very routine Thursday workout set.
00:02:20.440
It's called The Secret Show and it's called that because none of the names are announced on the show.
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Which means that you, in my position, you know, as someone that's been doing this for over a decade and a half, stand-up comedy, you know, you don't have any pressure on you.
00:02:36.380
So you don't have to necessarily do your A material.
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I mean, I don't go in with those intentions, but it is that kind of show.
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So it's literally the last show that you would expect to get cancelled on.
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It was at a big aluminum bar on 6th Street called the Vulcan Gas Company, which we made our temporary home during the pandemic when Joe was building up his club.
00:03:06.980
So, again, just a throwaway set on a throwaway night, a throwaway show, a throwaway lineup.
00:03:18.360
And I roll in and I always get to go on whenever I want on that show because, technically, how sad of a world this is, but I'm the big celebrity on a show like that.
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I recognize him as Pang Dang, a guy that I had open for me quite a few times in Dallas, Texas.
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Many years ago, five, six years ago, I thought he was charming and, you know, very Asian.
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So it's fun to have someone like that open for you.
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And he's going on and on during his set about how white people are so bad and Asian people have done all this great stuff.
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And, you know, this is during what they were trying to make appear to be Asian hate time.
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Like, that was different during that time because there was a lot of homeless people that, with mental illness, attacking Asian people in New York City.
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So the media tried to make that a storyline, like it was some, you know, epidemic that's happened.
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Yeah, like people in a comedy club need to be lectured about it because that will stop homeless people in New York.
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Yeah, I mean, wild what the media covers and what they don't cover.
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And it was Asian Heritage Month, which no one knew at the time.
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I do a thing to this day where if I meet a likable Asian person, I ask them, hey, do you know what Asian Heritage Month is?
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And he's also, I do believe he went slightly over his time.
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This is, there's just a thing that I've always done.
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I was built in the darkness of the comedy store in L.A. at a very dark time with very, you know, the comedy wasn't even that cool yet.
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It was more of a carnival type of thing back then.
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The leading, you know, Chappelle was retired and Dane Cook was on top.
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And it was like, it was just a dark time for the art form.
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There was no real, there was no YouTube specials.
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So it was just up to HBO kind of and Comedy Central, which was a sinking ship.
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Anyway, my point is that the time when I started, when I was constructed as a comedian was so dark.
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And I've always been a maker, funner of people, a roaster before that was even a famous word.
00:06:10.240
You know, it wasn't, you know, if I could take you back to 2007, you'd be surprised to know that there were roasts.
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And there's the Comedy Central roast that happens every other year.
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I am already frustrated because he's going a little long.
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I just want to get up and get out of there.
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He's saying that white people basically ain't shit.
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And the, it felt like it was kind of like, you know, another thing about that show specifically is sometimes they get a dumb crowd.
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You know, they're going to a workout show on a Thursday night.
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And I'm thinking to myself, these fucking idiots are laughing at fucking, you know, kind of like, you know, I don't want to say lefty leaning.
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But it kind of was that night, a groany, lefty leaning kind of crowd.
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That's kind of like, hey, hey, not laughing, but giggling at the stuff that he was saying because they felt like he had the timing of it being funny.
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But if you watch the video, it ain't really funny.
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And I figure, okay, I'm going to take a few jabs at him.
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I was going to use the C word on him, whether he was Japanese, whatever.
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I was just in the mood to use a funny, dark word.
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That's how I often establish my sets at the top.
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I like to hit them so that the rest of the set, they're like, okay, we know what we're in for with this guy.
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How about one more time for the filthy little fucking chink that was just up here?
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All you fucking race traders are hooping and hollering.
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I'm back there watching you puking in a fucking bucket.
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Oh, you borrow money from us and you guys are just eating it up, you fucking pussy.
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Fun facts about the moment that it happened was, you know, I had a camera rolling for my set that was rolling throughout the night.
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We don't ever do anything with anybody else's set, but he didn't know that there was a camera rolling throughout the night.
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And when he found out that he was bringing me up, he asked Red Band, the co-host and producer of Kill Tony, a guy that I've worked with, we've made, you know, worked together for over a decade.
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He asked him, it's his show, if he could record his set, which is, you know, rare in Texas, Austin, for that to happen.
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Red Band thought it was interesting that he asked after he found out that he was bringing me up.
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I think you guys are in for a little bit of a treat.
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And I notice that someone's recording from the audience.
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And it was the friend that he asked to record his set.
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I notice that it ends a couple minutes after I'm up there.
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Who cares if they recorded me making fun of Pang Dang, you know, on a random Thursday show?
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If anything, I figured if anything were to happen with that clip, he would post it under the type of caption of,
00:10:02.600
so fun to be roasted by my pal, you know, someone that I look up to, literally.
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That was a Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Monday night.
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And I have, for some reason, this crazy dream that I'll never forget.
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And this is, like, totally off subject and kind of corny.
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But I have this weird dream about my old house.
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And there's another floor above that was never there.
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And I'm going up this, like, ladder, spiral staircase.
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There's, like, old dolls on the walls and stuff.
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Kind of like, you know, you want to go right back to sleep.
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But the dream was so weird that you're kind of like, ugh.
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And I have, it says, you know, when you hit the max, it just says 20 plus.
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Because I went to bed, whatever, four hours ago.
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And it's all these misspelled, diabolically, like, weird words in wrong places.
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So I end up clicking on some of the profiles to see, like, what are they even referencing?
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Like, normally if you click on something, there's, like, a video or something that, you know, and then you see what they're commenting on or anything.
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But I click on another profile and another profile.
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Well, and I'm clearly seeing that it's Asian, but all these people have zero followers for some reason.
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So, um, and there's Chinese captions and then there's a whole Chinese letter, um, Chinese written article underneath it.
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So I copy and I paste it into a translator and it says, this is where things get weird.
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I think you guys will appreciate this because my cancellation is kind of special and weird in a way.
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So, I translate it and it literally says, Chinese American comedian Pang Dang was, um, what are they, what was the radical terminology that they used?
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I mean, it was, uh, you know, it was racially whatever.
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And, um, it said, comedian Pang Dang tweeted at 11.15 a.m.
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But what's interesting, if you remember, is that it's 4.45, 5 a.m.
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On Tuesday, which I'm reading in the translator, hasn't happened yet.
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I go to Pang Dang's Twitter to see if he's tweeted anything and he hasn't.
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So, I'm like, I don't know what any of this means.
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And I'm just scrolling, like, what the fuck is going on?
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Now it's like I wake up and I'm actually awake now.
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And now I'm looking at it because I'm getting all of these things from this one big Chinese
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This is their one way of harassing somebody in America.
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It's by creating a fake screen name or whatever, logging on, and saying a bunch of jibber-jabber,
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And I remember seeing it with zero likes and zero retweets.
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The interesting thing that I forgot to mention is that in the Chinese one, it's in Chinese
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I think it's like neon green or something like that.
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And these American captions that are tweeted at 11.15 in English are neon green.
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So immediately I'm like, okay, whoever made that, made that.
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And this was a coordinated, without a doubt, this was coordinated over the weekend, an attack
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So blatantly, blatantly, and this has never been, you know, I never blew this up anywhere
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I'm wildly more successful, thank God, than I've ever been.
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So here's the exclusive is that obviously it was a coordinated attack.
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Obviously, he's in cahoots with the Chinese media.
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They did a report about a tweet that didn't happen, and they fucked up because they didn't
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However, the time zones or whatever, somebody fucked up because they leaked this story before
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So 11.15, the tweet goes out, and again, right then in that moment, I'm still thinking to
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myself, because I haven't put it together, this is a cancellation, that this thing's going
00:17:11.100
I'm literally thinking to myself, bang, dang, what the hell?
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Like, what he wrote in the caption was, whatever, it's terrible that I was insulted in this way,
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blah, blah, blah, happy Asian Heritage Month, hashtag Asian Heritage Month, hashtag whatever.
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And I'm thinking to myself, literally still at that point, I'm like, his caption's wrong.
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Like, I'm like, I'm going to hit him up and be like, yo, fix your caption.
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You thought what was happening is what happens between comedians, which is when we take the
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piss out of each other, we make it look like I've been insulted, but it's a fucking joke.
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And I hit up my buddy, who also has him open for him.
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Because this thing is starting to click, click, click, click, click, 100 likes, 500 likes,
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The ratio on it was insane because this is also, we're in like almost peak virtue signaling
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I think the vaccine's just rolling out right around then.
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I mean, everybody's just, you know, it's a weird fucking time.
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We're 11 months out of George Floyd, but still, you know, most of the, a lot of the country
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It's just, it's just a weird time for anything to happen.
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And so my buddy says that he talked to Pang Dang and Pang Dang doesn't want to talk to
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00:19:02.460
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Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.
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Which is also so interesting because he starts going to media outlets immediately, blowing
00:19:38.640
I mean, you know, I'm getting hit up by everyone.
00:19:43.200
My agents, my managers, Washington Post, New York Times wants to talk to you because everybody's
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picking up this, you know, story that involves race and these disgusting, disgusting media people
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So I turn everything down, of course, because what the fuck do I have to defend?
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None of these journalists have any integrity or common sense whatsoever.
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But let me tell you, when you're in the storm, you're like, holy shit, these motherfuckers.
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If you Google me, the first thing that pops up is Tony Hinchcliffe is an American insult
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comedian famous for making fun of comedians and writing for the Comedy Central roast.
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Even though I've been doing stand-up comedy for 16 and a half years, I'm best known for making
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fun of comedians, whether it be writing on the roast, hosting Kill Tony, and just in normal
00:20:48.820
If you see me in a green room, you know, whatever.
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Anytime I see anybody, I scan them, and I think of what I would say.
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It's a defense mechanism from having too big of a head when I was in kindergarten.
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The same size head that I have now when I was in kindergarten, but on a little body.
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So like, there's my chin, and there's the top of my head.
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But it's the same size head that I have now, so I grew into it.
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It only took an extra three feet of growth to fit into it properly.
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I do feel sorry for your mother though, Tony, if that was the size of the head.
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Well, I was the fifth kid of hers, so I came out like a water slide.
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My manager, who I actually really, really, really liked at the time, is like, I'm here for you.
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So, as it's all happening, you know, just dread kind of is setting in.
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I go have dinner that night with my girlfriend at our favorite little sushi restaurant.
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I'm starving, but I also don't have an appetite.
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And I talk to Joe, and he's like, dude, this is not good.
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And, you know, there's a lot of fucking death threats on you coming in.
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Let's not do, let's, why don't you take a couple nights off of these shows tomorrow?
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Just little throwaway shows at a little dinky comedy club around the corner.
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But once they take my name off of that lineup, then there's a new news article.
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And the news article is, Tony Hinchcliffe removed from Joe Rogan shows because of racial blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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So now people online are going, ha, ha, your buddy just stabbed you in the back.
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They don't know that it was a throwaway 20-minute set anyway.
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So now there's a new news article that night about Tony Hinchcliffe off of Joe Rogan shows.
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And at the time, and it's funny we're talking about this, at the time, Israel and Palestine were bombing each other left and right, back and forth.
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It was probably the last big one until this one that just started a couple days ago.
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But I remember that because I'm like, why is the news not talking about this?
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Why the hell are they talking about a dirty comedian at Vulcan Gas Company on a Thursday night in Austin, fucking Texas?
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How is me making fun of some completely unknown comedian that has probably seven minutes of good material to his name?
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And by the way, I couldn't eat the sushi after that.
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It's what it kind of seemed at the time, which is crazy to me because I'm like, there's just no way.
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I can't get in trouble for making fun of people.
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That's like you guys getting in trouble for asking questions.
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To get in trouble for what you do and what you're supposed to be good at is crazy to me.
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I've never seen that in 39 years of living in America.
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Motherfuckers leave their eggs on the counter.
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How much of your percentage of listeners is American?
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No, 40% British, 20% the rest of the world.
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This is why we beat their ass in the war of revolutionary times.
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So anyway, here's where it starts to get cooking.
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Because the next day I'm like, well, yesterday was crazy.
00:26:22.280
And at about, I also messaged the venue in which we were doing Kill Tony at the time.
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A really, really, really small venue here in Austin, Texas that famously is like a small
00:26:41.220
corporate venue that I only chose as the home of Kill Tony when we first arrived here because
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one of my very good friends, Gary Clark Jr., is a partner in the place.
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And he was in Australia at the time, very busy with some very busy stuff that I won't
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But he was out of the loop being a creative genius.
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And I messaged the running partner of that club.
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I go, hey, stuff's crazy right now, but it's going to blow over.
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Trust me, if you want to talk about it, give me a call.
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And I'll explain everything and how we will execute moving forward.
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I always felt like I was doing them a favor by having the show there.
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Very, very, very, very left-leaning venue to where they restricted how many people were
00:27:50.820
in the audience, so much space in between the audience.
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Because we're doing stand-up shows where people are shoulder-to-shoulder every other
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But I was playing along with them, being a nice guy.
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And so I go, hit me up if you have any questions or whatever moving forward.
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And that was the day before I messaged them at about whatever it was, 11 or noon the next
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day, they put out a press release saying, we're no longer the home of Kill Tony.
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Again, this jargon, I don't even remember.
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There's a part of my brain which remembers a lot of shit that won't allow myself even the
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opportunity to remember what these virtue-signaling morons, both them, Pang Dang, I'm realizing
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right now, you're watching me realize that I can't remember the actual verbiage because
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I just find virtue-signaling to be literally the most disgusting thing in the world.
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Be a good person or don't be a good person.
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Don't make it look like you're a fucking good person.
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This venue, which by the way, it's the service is terrible at the venue.
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Either you know the venue or you don't know the venue.
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And if you don't know it, don't look it up and don't go there.
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Even though I helped them throughout the pandemic from December of 2020 to May of 2021,
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And I gave them liquor sales and a full audience and the coolest show in town every Monday.
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Packed it as much as they would let me pack it.
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Could have done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds more people.
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But they wanted to appear like they cared about the safety of Texans that wanted to see a comedy show.
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It sucks when your favorite ones start covering it, right?
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And what I chose to do because I was so stressed out is I went golfing with Ron White and another really good friend.
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And I'm explaining to them what's happening.
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And these guys live in fucking high rises and castles and ranches and shit.
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And they don't know shit about shit, especially being canceled.
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And I remember I took my girlfriend with me there.
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And we were doing this thing where each hole, when I would get back in the car, I'd go, anything new?
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And as you could probably guess, the worst game of golf I've ever had in my life.
00:31:15.140
It's so interesting to see that, like, you know, it really is that game.
00:31:22.140
It's a game of mental strength and not being distracted, not being stressed.
00:31:28.220
Because little tiny things, you know, going the other direction or farther from the hole than I was before.
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And yeah, so every time I go to the golf cart, it was something else.
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It was weird that I was torturing myself that way.
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When you're in this like this, if you want to know what it's like to people listening, since you guys probably do know.
00:31:53.100
But what it's really like is you're waiting for the storm to pass.
00:31:56.980
So you're kind of looking out the window to see if there's any light coming, right?
00:32:07.200
I was obsessing with, it's got to be any second now.
00:32:10.280
Any second there's going to be not another news article.
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You know, it's like it's the same ones of writing other ones.
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And then at about 4 or 5 p.m. that day after I got home, and I'm really thinking, well, this is it.
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Very, very big, fancy agents in LA that, you know, I left a huge agency to go with them.
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I doubled my money and tripled my money with touring with these big, fancier agents.
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And I get the call, and they go, Tony, really bad news.
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It's coming from above, but we have to let you go.
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It's coming from above, you know, these pussies.
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Always blaming someone else, which is just ridiculous.
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All the promises of a bright future and building a crowd and all of this stuff.
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They put out a fucking press release saying, we disassociate ourselves with Tony Hinchcliffe and racism of any kind.
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So boom, CNN, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
1.00
00:33:54.620
It's the biggest story since the whole thing even went.
00:34:04.100
And again, to know what it's like as a comedian when it's a joke, when it's not right, what's happening to you?
00:34:13.440
It's funny because getting canceled gets clumped in with people that should be canceled.
00:34:20.400
You're this's and that's rapists and sexual assaulters.
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00:34:25.800
And it kind of gets clumped together, getting canceled.
0.95
00:34:29.400
But there's a whole slew of your Joe Rogan's, your Tony Hinchcliffe's, your Shane Gillis's, your Ari Shaffir's of people that, what?
00:34:40.200
Which is interesting because this is even different than that.
00:34:43.860
And again, I'm scrambling in my brain the whole time like, wait, even these guys got in trouble for something they said on a podcast.
00:34:50.780
How am I getting in trouble for something that I said on a stage at a comedy show to another comedian?
00:35:04.420
The disgusting big media wants their clicks.
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00:35:09.140
And, you know, they were bloodthirsty at the time to see a, especially, I think, a Texan, which made the story more interesting to them.
00:35:18.260
Whereas just a year or so earlier, yeah, a year earlier, I was a Californian.
00:35:24.000
I don't think it would have rang the same, their headline, you know, comedian in L.A. gets in trouble for making fun of Asian comedian.
00:35:38.740
So what I was going to say is when you get canceled for a joke and it's not right, what's happening is you're getting, I'm getting phone calls continuously from the best comedians in the world.
00:35:50.780
And some people who at the time weren't even my best pals.
00:35:53.840
They were reaching out just to give advice or ask how I'm doing.
00:36:03.760
There was a couple that are like, geez, why did you have to go like that?
00:36:21.040
I'm talking about the 10 best stand-ups in the world except for Chappelle, Louis, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld.
00:36:35.200
One guy says you should write a letter and put it on Twitter.
00:36:38.500
One person says you should type it and put it on Twitter.
00:36:41.020
One person says you should make a video and put it on Instagram.
00:36:43.780
One person says you should explain what happened and put it on Instagram.
00:36:47.380
One person says you should apologize and put it on Instagram and Twitter.
00:36:51.040
Another person says you should write an apology.
00:36:53.440
Another genius says that you should make a video of an apology.
00:36:57.580
Another one says you should make a sketch about it and put that out.
00:37:00.180
Another one says go on stage, do a set about it, and put that out.
00:37:09.620
Shane Gillis and Ari Shafir were the only two that matched up,
00:37:17.420
The third guy that I golfed with, me, Ron White, and the third guy, who's not a comedian
00:37:22.560
and not in the industry whatsoever, also said, whatever you do, do not apologize.
00:37:32.780
He called me that night and he goes, Tony, I know you're really going through it.
00:37:41.240
Meanwhile, and I'm not going to name any names, but a lot of people say,
00:37:45.580
look, you just have to say some kind of apology.
00:37:58.760
If I want to call somebody a fucking cunt or a dick or this or that, there's no magical words to me.
1.00
00:38:06.100
If I think it's funny at that time, for that moment, in that place, then that's me.
1.00
00:38:16.220
I'm the doctor to diagnose that special case, right?
00:38:20.900
So I just, and again, I got to tell you, so many geniuses of wild, wild success.
00:38:33.260
But there's still this tug of war, even though I don't want to.
00:38:35.560
And even though I'm talking with them about, I don't think that's the right move.
00:38:40.400
It's so hard to tell people that are, you know, wildly successful that I think they're wrong about this.
00:38:49.220
Especially when the entire world is going, this is the worst guy in the world right now.
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And I'm thinking to myself, am I fucking crazy?
1.00
00:39:11.200
I ate, I remember eating a slice of pizza that night, the second day.
00:39:21.920
So if my metabolism is so fast that if I miss a meal or two, I look skinny and gaunt and gross.
00:39:29.740
And now we're basically waking up on morning 72 hours, right?
00:39:45.520
Anyway, now I've had a little bit of that sushi before the phone call with Joe and a slice of pizza the next day.
00:39:55.820
I remember thinking, I can't believe how not hungry I am.
00:39:59.160
This is so weird that I'm not hungry at all.
0.98
00:40:02.560
And I'm a fucking, I'm one of those like Joey Chestnuts type of characters.
0.97
00:40:09.060
You might not be famous where you live, you leave your eggs on the fucking counter.
1.00
00:40:13.400
But Joey Chestnuts is a famous skinny guy who beats everybody in the world at eating hot dogs.
1.00
00:40:18.720
For some reason, he can eat fucking 300 hot dogs in 10 minutes.
0.99
00:40:24.160
Like I can eat fucking a bowl of spaghetti that big if I wanted to.
1.00
00:40:31.440
And so I remember thinking, how am I not eating?
00:40:35.020
Anyway, but I'm just trying to take you guys to what it's like.
00:40:38.660
You know, when you're wronged by everybody and everything.
00:40:43.220
And, you know, your friends are there for you, which is great.
0.97
00:40:46.200
But still, when you open your phone and you're on the front page of fucking everything for a joke.
0.99
00:40:56.240
And at this point, let me remind you that at this point, you know, morning three,
00:41:00.800
or the start of the third full day, let's put it that way, right?
0.90
00:41:06.440
Because it started at fucking 5.30 a.m. on technically Monday night, Tuesday morning.
0.88
00:41:14.140
These WME drops, Tony Hinchcliffe articles are everywhere.
00:41:24.000
Every single thing that reached out to me, he did.
00:41:36.080
It seems like he's, and he's adding more stuff.
00:41:39.060
He's basically giving himself away in a lot of ways.
00:41:42.300
In one interview, he talks about how he saw me the night before opening for Joe Rogan.
00:42:00.060
He asked Red Band if he can record after he found out that he was bringing me up.
00:42:09.060
And I'm sure deep down, Pang Dang is probably, you know, somewhere in there,
0.94
00:42:25.840
And I'd imagine you get rewarded, though, for doing what they want.
00:42:29.380
I'd imagine that maybe, I don't know, whatever it may be, your family.
00:42:34.360
As an aside, what I find kind of weird is him doing that, right?
00:42:49.880
I could have, I could have had the entire, I could have made it a thing.
00:42:57.940
I could have told the Kill Tony fan base, let's get him.
00:43:08.960
And I think it's going to follow him forever.
0.99
00:43:13.760
In a way, I kind of feel bad for him, but I don't.
00:43:21.880
This was not, this was not, it's not what he said it was.
0.99
00:43:30.100
He contravened the golden rule, which is you do not do that to a colleague.
0.99
00:43:36.060
You do not see a joke, especially in a new material night, and then record it and put
00:43:44.140
it on the internet and then orchestrate a pile on.
00:43:49.320
And again, the editing of the thing is magical.
00:43:53.280
You know, about 15, 20 seconds after he cuts it at the end, you know, at the end of me,
00:44:04.440
I think the last thing I say, all you guys out here hooting and hollering, like it seems
00:44:08.540
like I'm mad at the audience for laughing at him, the way that the clip goes.
00:44:14.020
But what's funny is that if you watch the video, about 15 seconds after that, I literally
00:44:25.100
What do you think I'm being serious up here?
0.99
00:44:27.140
Like I'm literally, I totally acknowledge that I'm fucking just being a crazy, dark freak.
0.97
00:44:34.420
We'll be back with the interview in one minute.
0.71
00:44:36.820
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00:45:44.340
I'm thinking in my head, I can't, I can't.
1.00
00:45:52.260
All the stupid old school comedian shit that you've heard about everybody.
1.00
00:45:56.120
You know, sleeping in my car behind the comedy store.
1.00
00:46:00.800
You know, picking up shifts at the coffee shop around the corner.
00:46:06.840
Jumping on the phones at the comedy store from 12 to 7.
00:46:09.500
Then working the door at the comedy store from 8 to 2 a.m.
00:46:12.500
And then waking up after sleeping in my car at 5 a.m.
00:46:18.540
And I'm thinking to myself, is this happening to me?
00:46:26.800
Again, Shane Gillis and Ari Shafir, you know, who had both gone through it.
00:46:33.460
Shane made a joke on a podcast, got cancelled off of SNL.
00:46:56.000
I'm talking with Ari a lot, who really, really, really, really, really ended up when the smoke
00:47:00.760
cleared being my top advisor, which is kind of crazy because he's a renegade, you know,
00:47:09.000
And I talked with him about how, you know, I have the video of his set and my set.
00:47:17.320
If he put out my material, why shouldn't I put out his material in full length, you know?
00:47:25.100
Retaliation is a hell of a thing, as we're probably going to find out with this new Israel-Palestine
1.00
00:47:31.820
You don't want to mess with somebody that has the fucking Iron Dome, right?
0.93
00:47:36.440
I don't know if that analogy makes any sense.
0.98
00:47:42.440
But still, they've got resources, I think, is what you're saying, Tony.
00:47:46.280
But what I didn't want to do is I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to get it out there,
00:47:53.540
but I wanted to get it out through a good vessel.
00:47:55.440
And it was actually Ari's suggestion that we put out both sets, his set, his whatever,
00:48:01.400
10-minute set, and my whatever, 15-minute set, and let's just put it out.
00:48:11.600
Let's leave his anti-white, pro-Asian, and by the way, another thing that happened is
0.95
00:48:18.740
that when the clip that he put out happens, and I call him a filthy little C-word, and
0.99
00:48:24.900
I go, oh, we make it a gunpowder, we do with this, we do with that, I hit like three Asian
1.00
00:48:31.880
I'm referencing what he was talking about during his set.
00:48:38.700
It sounds like I'm rambling off these Chinese stereotypes, but it's him being a cornball and
1.00
00:48:45.100
me letting the audience know, you just saw the Chinese guy doing corny Chinese jokes.
0.99
00:48:52.240
But again, the clip makes me look fucking terrible.
00:48:57.620
So we decide that we're going to put it out on Ari Shaffir's YouTube channel, and it was
00:49:04.860
I mean, it blew up, both sets back to back, showing that holy shit, not only was he doing
0.97
00:49:11.480
unbelievable kind of, I mean, really weirdly anti-white material and corny Asian jokes, but
1.00
00:49:22.120
I, you know, just to graze over it, when you watch both sets full length, it's the 20 seconds
0.97
00:49:30.180
that made world news for three days is fucking nothing.
0.93
00:49:46.780
Where he was doing a very, you know, tight, like he's like trying to make it in Austin,
00:49:52.400
That set was a big deal to him and a shoot around for me.
00:50:02.860
Um, he absolutely stops every single scheduled media thing because he realized he fucked up.
0.79
00:50:09.900
He had no idea that I had the nuclear warhead, which is both of our sets unedited.
0.95
00:50:15.100
Um, and I mean, I got word from someone that, um, he had to beg CBS to stop, uh, from running
00:50:28.120
Like it was about to be a big thing and it's him going, please stop.
00:50:31.340
My, I got, I got, I got, I got, I got, we can't, I have to stop.
00:50:40.280
If I don't have that video and it's funny cause I just mentioned this dinner with Joe,
00:50:45.620
we were talking about how crazy cancellations are.
0.73
00:50:48.860
And I go, if I didn't have that video of both sets, who the fuck knows where we're at?
0.95
00:50:53.280
And instead people got to see that I was just being me on a random night, not attacking
0.96
00:51:03.080
And, you know, by the way, if he would have come up to me that night and said anything,
00:51:12.420
It's not what he needed and it's not what would have benefited him again, whatever, however
00:51:17.300
this Chinese media thing works or whatever was supposed to happen there.
00:51:21.560
I mean, technically he's a spy, let's face it, right?
00:51:25.060
Technically in some way, what he was doing was, you know, he's infiltrated America in
00:51:32.240
order to, you know, cause a ruckus of some kind.
00:51:37.320
How does the Chinese media release that he tweets at 1115 in America?
0.97
00:51:42.420
When he didn't, when it's not 1115 in America and the fucking tweet happens at 1115.
0.98
00:52:00.880
I go on stage on Sunday night, again, Vulcan Gas Company, a random throwaway show that I'm
00:52:08.360
Um, I pop in and, um, to the most amazing pop of applause that I've ever gotten in my
00:52:17.020
And, um, I talked about it and it was, uh, again, this is corny, but I, I was fucking
0.95
00:52:26.440
It was, I was, it had been five days and there I was doing what I loved to do and I had jokes
00:52:33.260
about it and it, it's, it's always been my therapy, you know, again, for a decade and
00:52:40.660
Whether it be a friend that kills themselves or a tragic accident or a grandma dying or this
00:52:48.920
And there I was talking about being on stage while on stage five days after I'm thinking
00:52:55.660
maybe, maybe I remember one comedy club owner, uh, said, you know, and this is like on the
00:53:03.360
Wednesday, this is like 24 hours in, she goes, you know, Tony, in about a year, everything
00:53:10.760
And there I was on Sunday and everything was better than normal.
00:53:18.040
When you get wronged, um, you're, I think you're going, it made me go after the laugh
00:53:27.400
I was more bloodthirsty for, um, having a fucking great set.
0.99
00:53:33.560
It's, I'm going to show you motherfuckers that this isn't like, you know, this is, this
0.99
00:53:45.160
That is such a powerful lesson in that, Tony, because there's a lot of people who would have
00:53:50.520
let that experience destroy them, who would have gone under.
00:53:54.280
And you can understand it as well because it was unfair.
00:53:58.460
But I don't think people watching this realize what it means to an actor or an agent to,
00:54:04.580
or to an actor or comedian to sign with a big agent.
00:54:12.320
It's, it's that moment you've been working towards the promised land.
00:54:15.780
You're going to be able to get this or access it.
00:54:17.500
And for all of that to disappear like that, because of a joke you made at a new material
00:54:24.000
night, when the entire rule of the new material night is we're going to say stuff, it might
00:54:32.300
But that's the point because we're working it out together.
00:54:36.720
On a Thursday night in my hometown, not listed on the show, all of it was a perfect storm of
00:54:47.700
And even then, here's another fun fact is my Wikipedia changed that week, that day or
00:54:52.640
It went from American insult comedian to, you know, disgraced comedian or something like
00:55:05.140
Someone changed it from insult comedian because it didn't match their fucking storyline.
0.98
00:55:19.460
I mean, on stage, my stand-up isn't really just, it's not one, you know, it's not one-sided
00:55:27.280
It's a little bit of a diverse portfolio of making fun of a ton of stuff.
00:55:31.340
But I always found it interesting that that was the first line and then it wasn't the first
00:55:40.700
So let me ask you something about the media because I'm curious to know what you think
00:55:46.600
about whether they were click hunting, whether they maybe just don't know comedy, maybe they
00:55:55.380
didn't know enough about you, or do you think it was malicious?
00:55:59.940
They went after you because they knew this was their moment to make some money.
00:56:07.200
I think, you know, a lot of these articles had me as frequent Joe Rogan guest, friend
00:56:14.940
And at the time, he's burying them with a shovel.
00:56:22.700
But he's talking to people about vaccines at this time.
00:56:41.660
So you think they were kind of going, this is a guy we can use to shit on Joe?
0.99
00:56:48.360
I think they had a weird thing with Asian hate at the time.
00:56:52.020
I think they're coming off of the George Floyd thing.
00:56:56.700
And they're like, ooh, this could be a new market for us.
00:57:12.200
And, you know, a couple of them actually stuck me on the phone.
00:57:19.040
I don't know how they got my number, by the way, which is also creepy as fuck.
0.99
00:57:22.080
They're fucking good at getting your number.
0.99
00:57:28.880
I'm not interested in having any statement on this whatsoever.
00:57:33.180
Well, are you thinking about putting out a statement?
00:57:36.820
I mean, you know, they keep you on the phone.
1.00
00:57:42.940
You know, so, yeah, I think it was a multi-pronged effect.
00:57:50.160
It was racism less than a year after George Floyd, but in a whole new market, kind of like
00:57:56.260
The, you know, I think there was, you know, I think they love downplaying stand-up comedy.
00:58:06.000
I think that it hurts them to have people really out there, you know, single-handedly having
00:58:14.080
a voice and an opinion on things, which is what they really want, right?
00:58:18.900
These media outlets want to sneak their opinion or their take in on things, and they supposedly
00:58:24.960
aren't allowed to, but that obviously changed half a decade ago or however long ago when
0.90
00:58:36.020
But, you know, it, the crazy thing is, is that when they try to cancel you and they're
00:58:43.820
I've seen it with Ari Shafir, I've seen it with Shane Gillis, I've seen it with myself,
00:59:00.740
I don't see Cosby having a resurgence or any of those people, you know.
00:59:05.580
So many, so many times I see Weinstein on the front or back of my favorite movies that
00:59:17.400
If you didn't, you're bigger, you can get bigger than ever.
00:59:21.480
Again, and it's not just, it made me famous, it changed me.
00:59:27.940
I was swinging the bat with fucking anger instead of, eh, I hope you think this is funny.
0.99
00:59:37.180
I was, there was an animal that kind of is created.
0.99
00:59:44.800
And, you know, we started, it was two weeks later, we started Kill Tony at Vulcan Gas Company
00:59:55.480
The viewership was bigger, stronger than ever, and we've doubled that continuously every few
01:00:04.500
It just keeps getting bigger, stand up the same thing, absolutely nonstop and at a different
01:00:09.180
temperature, and, you know, everything's just better than ever.
01:00:15.000
Now, my agent is the agent that my old agents hated more than anyone.
01:00:21.440
The absolute head of comedy at the biggest comedy agency, not the second biggest, which
01:00:30.980
The number one biggest, and he's their worst nightmare.
01:00:34.500
He's the guy that they see in their nightmares.
01:00:39.640
And I've gotten two calls from them, my old friends at WME, in the last only two months
01:00:47.000
saying, you know, if you ever, if anything ever goes wrong over there, we would love to
01:00:51.920
get back in the Tony Hinchcliffe business.
0.94
01:00:53.800
And I cannot tell you, I cannot explain to you how much fucking joy it brings me.
0.94
01:01:00.360
I mean, I just sit on the other end of that phone and I just play it cool.
0.99
01:01:09.760
Because when they get you like that, when you're down, you know.
01:01:16.280
Because that is the sign of someone's character.
01:01:19.500
The sign when things go bad and people start running or they walk away or they take part
01:01:28.820
And you always remember the people who are there for you and you never forget the people
01:01:35.880
And just as cowardly and weak as I thought they were for dropping me when the times were
0.97
01:01:40.740
Like, I think that maybe even more cowardly, I find them crawling back with sold-out arenas
01:01:55.140
It's almost as disgusting to beg for forgiveness when someone is obviously thriving than it is
01:02:04.960
to stab them in the back when, you know, they are down and out.
0.96
01:02:08.860
Like, I mean, how weak, how gross to show your character like that.
0.99
01:02:20.240
So I go, yeah, yeah, I'll keep thinking about that.
0.99
01:02:22.680
Yeah, if anything ever goes wrong, if anything goes wrong with this, and again, I mean, it's
01:02:36.760
Like, yeah, six months to a year, he'll be back.
01:02:40.240
Yeah, we built a strong rapport with that.
1.00
01:02:49.240
And this is what, this is, you know, I started the interview by saying when we had Uncle
01:02:54.280
Roger on, he said, you know, this is the show you're going when you get cancelled.
01:02:57.420
This is why we have people on who've been cancelled.
01:03:01.620
They need to hear that if you have been treated unfairly, don't apologise.
01:03:13.820
And I can totally feel what you're talking about.
01:03:28.460
And people who get cancelled need to see this too.
01:03:36.980
Don't apologise if you didn't do something wrong.
01:03:43.500
Here's something that I didn't mention that I thought about a lot during that.
01:03:47.980
Actually, Tony, save it for locals because we've got to ask some questions from our audience.
01:03:52.900
We'll talk about what Tony wants to talk about and ask your questions as well.