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[0:10] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's the Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon. Welcome to another edition of the Roundtable. You're listening to us on the Broadway Podcast Network, or you're watching us right here on our virtual talk show. I'm so excited. Thank you to everybody who has been reaching out. Our Broadway World features are up every single Friday. You can listen to my face every single day of the week right here on this podcast. So I got an email. I got an email from really fancy special PR people in New York that only know really talented people. And then they sent me this bio of Zach Zucker. And then I saw a picture of the show, which it kind of said Jack off Broadway. And then I realized that Jack is his alter ego in the show, and he's off Broadway.

But this is gonna be a special interview. Y'all better hold on to your hat. Zach Zucker is comedy stand-up. Jack Tucker, comedy stand-up hour. Just buy your tickets. It's at Soho Playhouse, and Zach is here. Welcome to the show.

[1:14] Zach Zucker: Hello. Thank you for having me.

[1:16] Robert Bannon: I am so excited to talk to you because the fringe festival over at the pond across the pond or whatever has created the most interesting creative pieces of work from comedy to theater to immersive pieces to it all together. And now you're off Broadway at the Soho Playhouse.

[1:35] Zach Zucker: It's bizarre. Like it's really bizarre to me. You know, I owe my whole, I mean, I owe a lot of people my whole careers and the foundation of it all, but the fringe environment and the fringe circuit, specifically Edinburgh and all around the world, that's where we made all of our stuff, and that's where I saw the great artists who've influenced me that have gotten me here today. And it is a crazy wonderful story and show. You when I read about you, you're fascinating. Aside from the show, like this is what I've known allegedly. Firstly, we all should know you because you are Vulture's top comedians that we should know. So now we know you. So we're very now we know. We're hip. We're in the in crowd. Like we're secondly, you have done like clown school.

[2:18] Zach Zucker: I did. I fully studied at a clown school in France for two years, in a small village south of Paris. And you know, I went from being the golden grandson to very quickly being the black sheep of the family. You know, I was like Mr. Sportsman. I like fully did, I was like an Efron type case where like I was playing baseball and basketball in high school, and I got like a letter of interest to play baseball at Harvard, which I never would have gone to. I never would have done it. I cheated on my ACT, and that's how I got really good, like I got a good test score, and so that's why they came calling, and I wouldn't have been able to pull it off again on an SAT. So I was like, let me look for an out. And yeah, this it led me here. Parisian clown school to then stand up and etc.

[3:01] Robert Bannon: But you have done more than just clown school. I mean, you've created a production company, you've done a whole bunch of stuff, but how did all of these things add up to you creating an alter ego comedian character?

[3:13] Zach Zucker: That's a good question. I think there's like two answers. One is I'm part of a double act with my best friend and Norwegian comedy partner, Vigo Venn, who won Britain's Got Talent this last year, which is amazing because he's just like fully rich and famous now, which is wild. Like, this is a guy I used to eat, like we used to, you know, only be able to afford like two dollar bags of chips, and then we would, if we still had leftover salsa from the night before from a taco truck, like pull it out of the garbage and eat our chips and salsa together, and now he is a full-on British celebrity. It is awesome. But we used to do a double act together, and people said what we did wasn't comedy, and so you know that and they said, like, you know, you got they wouldn't book us because we weren't doing like traditional stand-up.

So there was like that element of it, which led to the creation of the variety show, which platforms really just non-traditional performance. It's very vaudevillian in the way that we book it and play it. It's all clown and drag, burlesque magic dance. You know, if I see someone on the street doing some fun, like you know, steel drums in the tube of London, we'll like chuck them up onto the stage and bring them in with us. And it was a mixture of like this seeing all these bad comics getting booked and not getting these opportunities ourselves, and then specifically watching Tim Heidecker and Greg Turkinton, who does a character called Neil Hamburger. I saw them do a double bill in London in 2017, and that just rocked my world.

And then the idea was born. Yeah, I just was like, well, let me try to do stand-up. Like, I've never done I was already six, seven years into my comedy career, and I had like literally never held a microphone before because what we did was like non-verbal physical comedy, so people don't believe that part of it, and I got a little bit in trouble when I first started doing it, but like the first time I did it, I was like, Well, a stand-up probably wears a suit, even though I've never seen any stand-ups except for my buddy Sean McLaughlin wearing a suit, and then saw and then I was like, and they have beer. So I walked out with a beer and I was so nervous that I was shaking and the beer was spilling, and people were laughing.

So I was like, All right, well, let me use my clown training and just like keep spilling more beer. And then I kept like thanking the audience and thanking the crowd, and we only had one joke. And the original joke was have you guys heard of the weather channel? The weatherman said there was a 70% chance it was gonna rain. I think we can all agree 70 is bigger than 30. It didn't rain. This fake news is out of control. And that's all I had. And then it all kind of just built from there.

[5:36] Zach Zucker: You went on stage, that was your joke. If you could believe it, and to this day, that is the opening 12-minute joke of the show.

[5:45] Robert Bannon: Well, firstly, if you're watching this, you can see the show seven o'clock. It's 70 minutes. So if you're old like me and you like to come home to watch, you know, reruns of 2020 or Wives with Knives on the ID channel, then you could be home with plenty of time to see. So you all you gotta do is go to Soho Playhouse.com. You only have till April 13th, so you better jump and grab a ticket and go see it. Or you could follow Zach at Zach underscore Zucker on Instagram, so you can stay up to date when he has his Netflix specials and HBO Max specials and his world tour and his movies and his folks and all of those.

[6:20] Zach Zucker: It sounds so good when you say it like that, you know. Unless you know something I don't know.

[6:24] Robert Bannon: I mean, I would love to, I would love to figure this out.

[6:26] Zach Zucker: It's gonna happen, Zach. I'm telling you, it's gonna happen. So when you come up with this character, so this is the way it's described. He's described as a well-respected journeyman, bona fide legend in the upstate New York regional comedy scene where all comedians go to thrive. Right. And he's a comedian's comedian, and he is fighting to save his marriage, but he's loan sharks, he has debt. And if you don't like the joke, then it's on the audience, it's not on him. He doesn't take accountability. Is this based on someone? Is this is this just out of your imagination? Or is this a secret angry letter to a comedian that was mean to you somewhere?

[7:01] Zach Zucker: It's so funny because like there's it's like kind of my two uncles are like my biggest inspirations. My dad's best friends, my uncle Tony and my uncle Dwek, who are the two, they're the two funniest guys ever, and they're always calling each other asshole and douchebag and making fun of each other and you know pulling each other's ties and like you know, pantsing each other, they're the funniest guys in the world. And they showed me like Andrew Dice Clay as a kid, who I love, obviously, and like I to like see just to pull all these like psycho, like um my dad also has another friend who told me he invented the internet by name and concept and Netflix in the 90s, and told me once, he said, So how do you become a leader?

And I was like, I don't know. He's like, here's the top, you're somewhere here. You can't lead from the middle. So what you gotta do is drop all the way to the bottom, and then you go, hey everybody, look at me, and then they all look at you, and now you're on top. And it's like that's the logic that fuels this guy. Like it is every night's the best night of his life. He's even if it's bombing, it's like we have some lines in there that are like, man, the acoustics in here are amazing. I can't hear anybody laughing right now. But like, he is it's it's it's never on him. And obviously, I'm piloting this horrible machine. Like, I'm fully aware when it's not working, but you just have to always remember any way a normal person would respond. Jack would go a thousand times in the other direction as hard as humanly possible.

[8:22] Robert Bannon: That's so funny. And as an actor, that's a great note. Like that, that you can be you can do that as an action. So you want to truly you that's like the perfect acting note right there.

[8:34] Zach Zucker: We what we say, we create these like uh force of nature characters where like no matter what happens, like there is nothing that could bring him down, and even if he does get down, he rises right back up again, you know. But Zach, when you're on there, the person, you not the character, not the satire, not the comedy. You are up there acting like you don't care, but I'm sure secretly hoping the audience gets it and you do care.

[9:01] Zach Zucker: Oh, yeah, of course. You know, it sucks every time it doesn't work. And like recently, I did my first ever spot at the comedy store, and bless the booker Emily. She is so wonderful to me, and she's given me so many opportunities, and she believes in me, and I really love her so much. And I went there in Tucker in this character, where like I'm missing a shoe, and my feet are sticking out of my socks, and I have these apples that I throw up like a baseball and smash them. So, you know, of course, naturally before a show, I have to go soften my apples somewhere so they explode better. And I didn't want to do it, and it sounds like a euphemism, but it really I am just softening my apples, and I'm so I'm just like bashing them against a wall.

And I've never been to the comedy store before, and I'm nervous, I don't know any of the comics. I'm like a clown, I don't really like have any friends in this world. And so I go to the back of the venue, and again, big suit, shirt tucked into underwear, missing a shoe. I'm soaking wet, I'm hitting apples on a wall. And the staff called security on me, and they escorted me out of the venue because they thought I was a homeless guy that snuck in to the venue, and then I'm fighting with them, being like, No, no, no, look, I just have a rubber chicken and a pocket full of condoms. I'm totally joking. Like, I'm not a I'm I'm a comedian. And in the group chats, they're like, hey, there's like a guy who says he's doing a 10 minute set in the belly room with his feet sticking out and he's wet and he's like, he's like arguing with security right now, and they had to come and get me and bring me back into the room like moments before I was supposed to go on stage.

I'm then now walking into an environment where everyone's heard of this, everyone's like, what the fuck is this gonna be? It's a night of actual comedians doing like, I'm fingering my girlfriend type comedy that like we make fun of, and I bombed so hard. Like Robert, it was the most embedded, it was one of the most embarrassing bombs I've ever had in my life because like we had made such a big stink about like getting the tech in there and we had to rehearse and I brought my own microphone because I deep throat it and I smash things and I don't want to break their equipment and to then die on your ass as a 30-year-old playing a whatever stupid shitty character in front of a bunch of other adults and like cool young kids who are seeing like a cool show at the comedy store was like truthfully one of the most pathetic moments of my life but to be able to then tell the story it's like all I'm remembering in that moment is like you are an artist and this will be great for an interview someday ever.

[10:39] Robert Bannon: I'm I love the story I just pictured you there like in the C not that they're CD but comedy clubs you know on CD it's CD you know the floors stick and they live in a different time and you're just banging apples with one shoe and just just softly just like kind of repeating my jokes getting into character ready to tape what I was hoping would be a set I could send to late night and get a late night set and let me tell you we didn't get the set you like it it's very reminiscent of like Andy Kaufman is like like you know his alter egos and character is this performance art is that what you are like how do you clap qual what do you what are you it's so funny because I don't really say I'm a comedian because I don't like do comedy shows I do my own shows I have been saying I'm a performer or an entertainer but that both sounds like a little bit too pretentious which I also love leaning into that um but like my heroes, like I grew up like uh Sacha Baron Cohen is a big mentor or not mentor, a big idol to me.

[12:20] Zach Zucker: And I worked for his production company years ago, and I went to this clown school because he went there and I had asked him, I was like, Should I do this? And he was like, Yeah, go. So I went. And so, you know, the Ali G's, the Barats, the Brunos, the Disruptors. I'm not my I have no ulterior motive other than to laugh and have a good time. But as it happens, a lot of times people take it, they think it's a real thing. Like, again, I don't know. I don't know how you could. Like, my fly is undone, there's toilet paper hanging out of my shoe, you know. I shoot myself in the nuts with a confetti cannon. Like, I there's a Spider-Man mask hanging out of my pocket where I say, like, that's my day job because I can't afford to do comedy full time.

And like, you know, if you're willing to believe that that's real, then like, you know, I don't know. I think that's kind of on you at a certain point. But I'm not like trying to be a performance artist. Like, I it it is funny to do to go do like I did the improv as well, and that was like the worst gig I've ever done in my life. And I hate the staff member that I I've never fought with a staff member in a venue. And this tech, this tech at the improv was he sabotaged my set in the middle of it because he and he pulled my wires out when I was asked to do this big like showcase because he was just he was just over having to deal with this, and then they didn't realize it was a character, and then afterwards, I like went to come clean up because I always come clean up.

Obviously, I'm not a jackass, and so I'm just like getting out of my stuff so I don't stink. And then they're like, Hey, buddy, how about instead of offering to help to clean up, you learn how to do comedy? And I was like, Man, you guys have like four photos of Andy Kaufman playing the drums right here, and you guys are all just like it reeks of posers who like to say they like these things and then don't actually know at all what they're talking about. And I'm not gonna like compare myself to him because he's a legend and he's got so much amazing stuff, and I hopefully have a long career ahead of me where I still can accomplish all the things I want to do. But like obviously, these guys are influences, and so it just feels kind of like they get exposed for being phonies.

And if a guy with his shirt tucked into his underwear is the guy that's gonna expose you, then like I'm sorry, you know, you gotta be better. But that's what I love. You just proved the point. You just proved the point. It's a satire on the world, and it works because they bought into it. That's how good. Just as you know, we had Lunel here, and she talked about with Sacha Baron Cohen and how she got the job by sucking his fingers and leaning into the craziness without even knowing what it was about. You know, she they were like, How would you act as a prostitute? And she was like, Give me your fingers, and she like sucked his fingers and got the Sometimes you gotta do the outrageous because that's what the job calls for, Zach.

[14:50] Zach Zucker: Look, I I've we uh we've caused riots by accident. You know, I've had people throw bottles at me, you know. I had the hundreds of walkouts in, you know, when we were developing the show in Australia and in the UK. I did a show on the 4th of July in London in 2019, and I bought 50 cheeseburgers from McDonald's and was tossing them into the crowd for everybody. And you know, I we had a bunch of like little toy guns and stuff, and we were just having fun with all this stuff. And I remember throwing a cheeseburger and I watched it unravel in the packaging, and then the bun split, and then a meat patty just landed on a bald guy's head, like perfectly on his head, and this guy got up and started yelling, like, you're a disgrace to America, you are a disgrace to your country.

And I'm like, Oh yeah, what what about this looks like a disgrace to you, huh? Tell me this looks like a disgrace. And then he came and started like coming down at me, and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, like you know, playing this, the whole crowd's laughing. This guy's not getting it. He then starts to walk away, and I'm like, Yeah, that's right. You walk away, and then he turns around and starts coming back at me, like, no, no, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. And then he turns around again. I'm like, that's right. You walk, and I just kept doing this. And this guy was like, he couldn't for a moment believe or understand that, like, dude, you've you've walked into the own your own trap that you've set for yourself. Like, I am I am just working with what's in front of me, and you are painting a big red target on you that's saying, make fun of this guy over and over and over and over again, you know.

[16:07] Robert Bannon: Zach, I'm so mad at you.

[16:10] Zach Zucker: Why?

[16:10] Robert Bannon: Because now I'm gonna have to come because this is so up my alley. This is you're gonna love it. This is so and I have to get dressed and get up and leave my house. I promise it's worth it. I promise it's worth it. The seats are comfy. I get a lot of shit from my partner and everything because I have everyone on the show, and I say, Yeah, can't wait to see your show. I can't wait to go see your show. And then I don't go see their show. And now I'm about to go see Zach's show.

[16:37] Zach Zucker: Well, it you know, it's that's the fun part about it is like, you know, the show so far, we were we were the New York Times critics pick, and then a week, a week later, I just got this crazy review from this publication that's like that just drags me all the way. And when I did the show in the fringe in 2019, I got mostly four, four and a half, and five star reviews from all the publications I wanted to, and then I got a three from like a shitty one and a two, and then I got a one-star review, and it was after the one star review. I sold out the entire run. I plastered that on all my posters, and we had like inherently evil the quote was a fraud completely out of his depth. And that, like, once you see that amongst all the rest of it, it's like, well, everyone else has their good reviews.

Who gives a shit if little chuck it little buckle buckle chuckers little review online fringe review thing gives you a five? Everyone gets that, but to get a one, like people people were asking me, they're like, it reads like you fucked this guy's wife, and like I he loves alternative comedy, this reviewer. I also found it like deeply funny that this guy writes under a pseudonym because he doesn't want people to know his real identity, which I was like, girl, you have some projection shit going on right now because you know, but it was it was amazing. And so I just posted this review today online, and people are going crazy about it.

[17:50] Robert Bannon: I cannot wait to read it. I love bad reviews. I think it's and that's the thing with Tucker. And again, you talk about that acting approach. It's like it is indestructible. A great review, like a New York Times critic's pick, is great, and a bad review makes us even stronger. You were you were called in a review the bisexual Lenny Bruce.

[18:09] Zach Zucker: Which I mean that and the bad boy of clown are my two favorite things I've ever been called. That is the best. I'm you can't top that. You might this might be the peak, Zach. This might be it. Look, and honestly, that's why I'm like, I'm kind of just living the dream right now.

[18:26] Robert Bannon: What you better live the dream right now. When you is your bio a joke as well? Like, what is real about Zach? Like well, you give me some examples. You don't know 34 million soldiers in the Red Army guy. You're you don't know that. You're you are you are not currently working your way through three million people who served in the British Army from 1940 to 1945. You are you are you maybe a World War II history buff. I'm not sure. What is real, Zach?

[18:58] Zach Zucker: But and to me, it's always just like if people are willing to publish stuff, then it's like, well, who cares? You know, like I this was the thing of like I I'm so you know, I I will this is where I will be a little honest. It's like it was really I've never been on any of these lists before, and it was really nice to get that stamp of legitimacy because it just helps your career uh with the vulture stuff. And I was like, I remember getting it in the middle of a show. My buddy Jake, who works for that or was part of the committee who I've known for like 10 years as well. It was a really cool serendipitous moment to be like to open this email and be like, Holy shit. And then I completely forgot about it because I was in the middle of the fringe.

And then it was the day before he was like, Hey buddy, have you like typed up all of your questions? And I was like, Oh shit, no. And at the time I was obviously didn't get it, but I was like flying back to screen tests for SNL. So I was prepping for this. And my best friend Dylan, who co-created the show with me, he's one of the co-devisors of the show. He was like, Can I write it? I was like, sure. So he just wrote 1800 words of pure fiction. And I because I was coming from the fringe world where it's like fringe biscuit wants to do a five-question interview with you where we just we say all the craziest shit all the time. I didn't really think about this. I didn't think that anybody read this besides like people's agents or managers.

And there's like again, it's all completely false. And he wrote our bios. Like he loves to just do this. And I, you know, again, like, what are you? What are you gonna read? 25 comedians say the same thing, or maybe you know, maybe a bunch of people will think this is weird, but then a few actual people who enjoy my stuff will read this and be like, This is crazy. I have to see what this guy is doing, you know. And that's I'm inspired by my favorite comedian Sam Campbell, who always does that. He's a good friend of ours, and every one of his bios is absurd, his images are crazy, his anti-marketing is so inspiring. And I'm like, Well, you know, it makes me feel like this. So either I get to see a hundred shows that all say the same thing, best show ever.

Oh my god, iconic, or like this guy's a fraud completely is out of his depth. Like, this show is the like if someone offers you a ticket, run away from this show. He is the that sells more. And he, like we said, he's a fraud, a fake, he's the bisexual Lenny Bruce, and you can get your you know, Streisand did that, and look at she turned out okay. She turned out all right. If you read her funny girl bio in her playbill, she wrote like she grew up on the Nile. She like it was a totally fake because she said they're boring, so she you know, gave an exciting read. And that was exactly what like even in this bad review, he referenced a part of the vulture review, and it was the first question. It was like, How did you know you wanted to be a comedian?

And Dylan wrote that when I was young, I was very ugly and disagreeable. So I used to have to drop rocks on my feet to make the other kids laugh at me. And this guy referenced that. He's like, you know, I guess Zach Zucker got addicted to comedy when he was dropping rocks on his feet as a kid, and I wish he kept that boy like innocence or something like this. And I'm like, dude, are you kidding me? Like he it's crazy, you know.

[21:47] Robert Bannon: That's the point. Look, you just prove, and that's why this character is great. And if this if he didn't just sell, I'll use his marketing. Don't go see this piece of shit show. It is a waste of time. It was not waste of time. It is the it is gonna be the most awful thing you've ever imprint. PR is gonna be so pissed at me because I just yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't go.

[22:06] Zach Zucker: Yeah. Well, that's I mean, but that that's how I do it when we fly her, you know. That we you don't want to waste the time. No, you want to be uh you want to be on the up and up, you want to know what's the next thing. Go to April 13th, go to So Who Playhouse.com. It's through the week, and you could get your tickets and you could see it. 70 minutes, seven o'clock in bed by nine o'clock. Just plenty of time for you to watch Dateline. I promise you, people, and you gotta follow, follow Zach on Instagram so you know wherever he will be. And uh, if you ever see someone at a comedy club with their shirt tucked into their underwear, banging an apple on the wall, and it's it might be Zach or it could be a random you know.

It could be another, it could be truly somebody. Cause I guess what I did find out was that five days earlier, a homeless man did wander into the venue and took a shower there, which I was like, literally pop off, girl, like catch yours, catch yours. I would do it too. And now he's also on the vulture comedian list.

[23:01] Robert Bannon: I am so excited for you. It was so nice to spend time with you. I love this is what we need. We need creative, new, fun, invent. We don't need another musical based on a movie from 1986. We need fun, original pieces of work and art. So thank you for doing this, and thank you for being here.

[23:16] Zach Zucker: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.