COMEDY FOR COMMERCE

Hello, and welcome to very first Comedy for Commerce blog post. This blog explores the intersection of making comedy and making money.

We have entered the final countdown to my favorite day of the year: Daylight Savings. Yes, I know we “lose an hour” Sunday morning when the Daylight Savings witch taps her wand and 2 am magically becomes 1 am, or something. But I have small children, thus have already lost multiple hours every morning and night for the past three years. I’m well past caring about that. But I do care about gaining an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon.

That sunshine, I tell ya, it works wonders. Let’s begin.

This Happened

• The McDonald’s CEO tried to eat a Big Mac. He looks like he hates it, and the internet noticed big time. Burger King reacted with their own execs eating and loving Whoppers, and basically everyone was reminded that it is much better for your brand to be funny on purpose than the butt of the joke. Call us, Chris.

• **DuoLingo just posted a bunch of marketing roles.** The king of unhinged brand humor is casting their net. The learning app stumbled a bit last year when people were outraged to learn they’d replaced many of their human interpreters with AI. Understandable. They seem to be working overtime to win back fans with social stunts and episodic content. We loved the Anime show they created to support their Japanese lessons, and are excited to see what they do with their new chess and math verticals.

• **Gap wants a D-Girl** As reported by Social Media expert Rachel Karten, the Zac Posen, Katseye, affordable sweatshirt company is hiring a Vice President of development based in WeHo. Pay is in the mid $300Ks. This feels like a canary in the coal mine, but for a good thing: 2026 is the year brands pivot away from AI slop and hard to human-led storytelling. It makes sense. You can’t sell many movie theater seats these days, so you may as well create stories that sell affordable sweatshirts.

• John Mulaney truly shocked me. Big Mulaney fan over here. He gave me notes of my first SNL packet back in 2010, which he definitely did not need to do, since my job was limited to getting his salad orders right at the time. I’ve always considered him to be an example of a comedy writer who “takes funny serious,” i.e., works extremely hard and writes extremely tight jokes. Sure, that may have had a lot to do with the cocaine addiction he’s shared he’d be hiding for many a year. But whatever. For someone who wears such tailored suits onstage, he’s created and contributed to some truly odd and edgy stuff. The Sack Lunch Bunch, Too Much Tuna, Stefan.

His most recent Instagram is a hard turn to the…earnest? Sweet, even? It’s a video, presumably shot by his wife, Olivia Munn, of him playing with their toddlers while the caption recommends some books. No drug references. No Nick Kroll weirdos. And his daughter’s bow!

He started a book club back in June using “#MulaneyReads”. I honestly thought it was ironic, but it doesn’t seem to be. Previous book recommendations have included “Playworld” by Adam Ross and “Shark Heart” by Emily Habeck. Cool, cool. I will add that most toddler parents that I know do not have time or energy to absorb thoughtful fiction, but perhaps we just need some of the ticket revenue from his current “Mister Whatever” tour.

In other Mulaney news, on July 11th, he’ll be the first solo comic to play Wrigley Field in his hometown of Chicago. #MulaneyRead

MORE COMEDY NEWS

• **Taylor Tominson’s Prodigal Daughter dropped on Netflix last week.** This one focuses on her lapsed Christianity. Probably a pass for any observant folks, but there were definitely some strong bits in there.

• **Another reason to celebrate this St. Patrick’s Day.** Mark Normand’s new special, “None Too Pleased,” hits Netflix on the 17th. Trump voice “We love Mark Normand. Fantastic comedian. Terrific guy”. Fitting release date, as one of his podcasts is called “We Might Be Drunk,” as this special’s viewers might be.

• **Nikki Glaser’s “Good Girl” comes to Hulu April 24.** The Deadline announcement calls it “Hularious,” which is the best argument for why streamers need to hire professional copywriters that I’ve seen yet.

• Pete Holmes is back. He’s putting his new special “Silly Silly Fun Boy” on his YouTube March 24.

• Bill Lawrence can not be stopped. The SCRUBS, Shrinking, and Ted Lasso creator brings us a new Steve Carell vehicle called “Rooster”. I honestly thought this was a sequel to Crazy, Stupid Love when I saw the trailer.

• Pheobe, I mean Lisa Kudrow, is back on March 22. I personally never got into this one, but some readers over the age of 25 might remember that after FRIENDS ended, Kudrow got some critical praise for this HBO show about a washed-up actress starting over, or something. IMO, it feels like this show walked so Hacks could run, and in that case, why do we need a third season of this show over a decade after it was taken off the air? But hey, that’s just me. And it’s definitely not Phoebe, because this character is a redhead.

• SXSW Comedy is not effing around. As if Austin weren’t overrun with enough comedians. The comedy portion of the festival runs March 13-18 and includes stand-up acts Chelsea Peretti, Chloe Radcliffe, and my buddies BriTANick (Brian and Nick), who have a film out.

• Deadline is presenting a show called “Comedy Means Business.” Also at SXSW. This seems to be an All-Star show of “Don’t Tell Comedy” comics, but as someone who has built their business on the premise that comedy does indeed mean business, I want to know more. Fingers crossed Free Puppies Creative has a presence there in 2027.

There’s honestly so much more I want to report about this festival and brands going for funny in their marketing, but I’ll save it for the next post.

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