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24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
The Ultimate Guide To Hulu's 21 Most Hilarious Stand-Up Specials
In case you missed it, at the end of 2024, Hulu announced its newest stand-up comedy brand: Hularious. Starting in November 2024, Hulu began releasing a new comedy special every month, and so far everything really has been hularious. Here's a look at Hulu's newest collection of original stand-up specials you can watch right now: Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny (2024) What It's About: "Considered one of the most prolific comedians working today, 7-time Grammy nominee Jim Gaffigan provides the skinny on everything from appetite suppressants to raising teenagers in Hulu's very first comedy special."Where You Know Them From: You might have seen him most recently as Tim Walz on SNL and heard him most recently as a voice on Bob's can watch their stand-up special here. Matteo Lane: The Al Dente Special (2025) What It's About: "Stand-up comedian, podcast host, cookbook author, trained opera singer — Matteo Lane is a true multihyphenate. Known for his quick wit and vibrant storytelling, he blends sharp observational humor with reflections on LGBTQ+ life, modern culture, and his Italian-Mexican upbringing."Where You Know Them From: You might have seen him most recently on Abbott Elementary and can watch their stand-up special here. Atsuko Okatsuka: Father (2025) What It's About: "Fans call her 'Mother,' but Atsuko is 'Father'—thriving professionally yet clueless about basics. A 7-year laundry hiatus and learning that marriage licenses precede weddings are just some hilariously relatable discoveries she shares in her special."Where You Know Them From: You might recognize her from her TV series Let's Go, Atsuko, as well as from voicing Yuri in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. You can watch the stand-up special here. Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years (2025) What It's About: "Drop Dead Years is the latest one-hour special from one of the greatest standup comedians working today. In what might be his most personal and introspective hour yet, Bill offers hilarious takes on everything from male sadness to dating advice."Where You Know Them From: You might have seen him most recently in Old Dads and Unfrosted, but who could forget his five-episode run on Breaking Bad?You can watch their stand-up special here. Roy Wood Jr.: Lonely Flowers (2025) What It's About: "In this stand-up special, Roy Wood Jr. explores how lack of connection has sent society spiraling into a culture full of guns, rude employees, self-checkout lanes, and why some of us would rather be alone rather than be connected." Where You Know Them From: You probably know him best from his seven years on The Daily Show!You can watch their stand-up special here. Ilana Glazer: Human Magic (2024) What It's About: "Ilana Glazer's unfiltered stand-up special dives into life's down and dirty truths, from painfully awkward high school years to navigating parenthood as a stoner mom."Where You Know Them From: You know her from Broad City, and most recently, she was in the film can watch their stand-up special here. Chris Distefano: It's Just Unfortunate (2025) What It's About: "Chris Distefano is trying to be the best father he can be, but nowadays, words speak louder than actions—so Chris is acting with the right intentions, but not always the right moves."Where You Know Them From: You might know him from Life & Beth and can watch their stand-up special here. Jessica Kirson: I'm the Man (2025) What It's About: "I'm the Man is a fast-paced and sharp-tongued special that showcases Kirson's searing perspective on everything from TikTok girls to her bizarre time at a trauma center."Where You Know Them From: You might have seen her most recently on Ramy and can watch their stand-up special here. In addition to their original specials, Hularious has also launched a curated collection of licensed stand-up specials ranging from iconic comedy specials to recent releases. Here's a look at some of the other specials you can watch on Hulu right now: Wanda Sykes: Tongue Untied (2003) What It's About: "Wanda Sykes pulls no punches as she shares her thoughts on George W. Bush's presidency, the insanity of airport security, and the real reason women fake orgasms."Where You Know Them From: You might have seen her most recently on The Upshaws and The Other can watch the stand-up special here. Kumail Nanjiani: Beta Male (2013) What It's About: "Many things completely terrify Kumail Nanjiani -- join him as he relives a Pakistani cobra-mongoose fight, a jammed adult videotape incident, and the scary noises in his attic."Where You Know Them From: You know him from The Big Sick, Only Murders in the Building, and can watch their stand-up special here. Jay Pharoah: Can I Be Me? (2015) What It's About: "Jay Pharoah, Saturday Night Live cast member for six years, brings you his latest and greatest special, Can I Be Me? This special includes some of Pharoah's greatest celebrity impressions, including Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Bernie Mac, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Katt Williams, Barack Obama, and many more!"Where You Know Them From: You probably have recently heard the SNL star's voice on Family Guy, Invincible, and The can watch their stand-up special here. Joel McHale: Live From Pyongyang (2019) What It's About: "The host of The Soup & star of the show Community brings you his first stand-up special. He discusses everything from feeding alligators in the south to wanting to change the San Francisco 49ers' name to something a little more relevant."Where You Know Them From: You might have recently seen him on The Bear, Animal Control, and as the host of one million reality TV can watch the stand-up special here. Leanne Morgan: So Yummy (2018) What It's About: "Leanne Morgan is a naturally funny storyteller who gives an honest look at suburban life and the challenges of keeping her husband happy while juggling kids, dogs, and cheerleading camp at the same time she's racing to get her hair highlighted."Where You Know Them From: You might recognize her from the new Reese Witherspoon and Will Ferrell movie, You're Cordially can watch the stand-up special here. Lewis Black: Thanks for Risking Your Life (2020) What It's About: "On his Grammy-nominated 14th comedy hour, Lewis Black targets consumerism, big pharma, and his favorite, politics. This bitingly sharp special was recorded in March 2020, right as COVID-19 shut the world down."Where You Know Them From: You've probably heard him most recently as the voice of Anger in Inside Out and Inside Out can watch the stand-up special here. Kate Berlant: Cinnamon in the Wind (2022) What It's About: "A one-of-a-kind standup comedy experience from Kate Berlant, who the New York Times called a 'magnetic improvisational comic' at the forefront of experimental comedy."Where You Know Them From: You might recognize her from A League of Their Own, The Other Two, and Don't Worry can watch the stand-up special here. Fern Brady: Power & Chaos (2022) What It's About: "Filmed live in Glasgow, Scottish comedian Fern Brady talks about the time a politician tried to cancel her, dealing with being bisexual, internet creeps, drunk teachers, and her unique method for practicing gratitude."Where You Know Them From: You can catch her as a voice in the upcoming animated film Stitch can watch the stand-up special here. Hari Kondabolu: Vacation Baby (2023) What It's About: "Comedian Hari Kondabolu discusses the strange and unique experience of having a kid during COVID. This special is both personal and political, with topics that range from dark chocolate to white replacement theory to Curious George."Where You Know Them From: You might recognize him from South Side or All About can watch the stand-up special here. Sasheer Zamata: The First Woman (2023) What It's About: "Viral sensation and SNL alum Sasheer Zamata supplies an hour of laughs grounded in her experiences. She mocks ads that try to use feminism, recounts her experience with public indecency, and analyzes history's limited portrayal of women."Where You Know Them From: After SNL, you might have seen her on Woke, Home Economics, and Agatha All can watch the stand-up special here. LOL Live with Daphnique Springs (2025) What It's About: "Comedian and actress Daphnique Springs takes the stage in Las Vegas to talk dating, adulting in your 30s, and the rising trend of millennials choosing to have dogs rather than children."Where You Know Them From: You might have seen her in episodes of The Morning Show and can watch their stand-up special here. Kelsey Cook: Mark Your Territory (2025) What It's About: "Kelsey Cook recently moved to Minnesota in the dead of winter to live with her boyfriend. In this special, she's letting on about the perks of dating an older man, the insanity of IUDs, navigating a parent with dementia, and much more."Where You Know Them From: Cook is known for writing on shows like Uproarious and Wrists of can watch their stand-up special here. LOL Live with Ken Flores (2025) What It's About: "In his first stand-up special, Chicago native Ken Flores jokes about everything from his weight and growing up in a Mexican family to his complicated feelings about Latino street-vendors and how he'd handle waking up in one of the Saw movies."Where You Know Them From: You can catch Flores on various podcasts, from Netflix is a Daily Joke to What's Up Fool?You can watch their stand-up special here. You can check out the rest of Hulu's collection of stand-up comedy specials on their Hularious hub, here!
New York Times
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
What to Do in New York City in April
Comedy Matteo Lane A man of many talents, Matteo Lane used to live in Italy working as a painter and an opera singer before he returned to Chicago to start his comedy career. Since moving to New York City more than a decade ago, Lane has become a favorite at the Comedy Cellar, where he filmed 'The Advice Special' in 2022 and its follow-up 'Hair Plugs & Heartache' in 2023. Lane has also appeared in the L.G.B.T.Q. stand-up documentary 'Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution,' as well as in episodes of 'Abbott Elementary' and 'Survival of the Thickest.' Lane's recipe and essay collection, 'Your Pasta Sucks: A 'Cookbook,'' came out on Tuesday, while his first special for Hulu, 'Matteo Lane: The Al Dente Special,' will premiere on May 16. Tickets to his performance at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday start at $46.50 on Ticketmaster. SEAN L. McCARTHY Music Kylie Minogue A career entertainer, Kylie Minogue has released some 17 studio albums since her 1988 debut — a vast discography that earned her the designation of all-time highest-selling solo artist in Australia. Over the years, she has made stylistic detours, venturing into R&B with 'Body Language' in 2003 and country-tinged pop with 'Golden' in 2018, but she always found her way back to her lodestar: the disco ball. Despite her reputation abroad, Minogue has struggled to make comparable inroads in the American market. But she managed to capture a slice of the culture in 2023 with 'Padam Padam,' an onomatopoeic sizzler that was championed by queer listeners and earned her a Grammy, her first in two decades. This weekend, Minogue will ride the success of 'Padam Padam' to back-to-back shows at Madison Square Garden. Tickets start at $54.50 on Ticketmaster. OLIVIA HORN Marshall Allen About a month shy of his 101st birthday, the saxophonist Marshall Allen will present the first live concert of the time-crossed, space-tinged, warmly inviting tunes that have made his debut solo album, 'New Dawn' (released in February on Week-End Records), such a pleasure. Past, present and future meld as the record finds Allen, a key collaborator with Sun Ra since 1958 and leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra since the early '90s, laying down of-the-moment cosmic grooves and bringing fresh life to long-gone popular sounds, like Ellington-esque blues and ballads or a boogie-woogie cut fit for a sci-fi beach party. At Roulette, Allen, whose sax remains a gutsy thrill, will lead a jazz sextet joined by a string quartet and the singer Rochelle Thompson. Tickets are $45 in advance on Roulette's website and $55 at the door. For more jazz that explores the spaceways, head to Sistas' Place in Brooklyn every Saturday in April to hear sets from other associates of Sun Ra, starting with a quartet headed by the trombonist Dick Griffin. ALAN SCHERSTUHL Kids 'The Magic City' Philomena knows all about bereavement: Her parents died when she was a baby. Now 9, she feels abandoned again. Helen, the beloved half sister who is raising her, plans to marry a widower with a 7-year-old son, Lucas. Helen sees this as a happy expansion of their family; Philomena views it as a betrayal. The little girl's emotions fuel the plot of 'The Magic City,' a show that is magical itself. Based on a 1910 novel by Edith Nesbit and presented by Manual Cinema, a Chicago company that combines live theater and music with filmlike effects, the hourlong play does more than explore the challenges of a blended household. It also celebrates the power of imagination. Created by Drew Dir, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller and Sarah Fornace (who also directs and stars), the production uses puppetry, cutouts and projections to draw the audience into Philomena's life and the fanciful toy cities she constructs from ordinary objects. When she and Lucas (Jeffrey Paschal) find themselves trapped inside one of these worlds, Philomena begins to learn how to share the space in her heart. Tickets to the remaining performances, on Saturday at noon and 5 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m., start at $20 on the New Victory's website. LAUREL GRAEBER Dance Ailey II The sleek headquarters of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater inHell's Kitchen is always abuzz with dance: classes, training programs, rehearsals and performances that illustrate the metamorphosis from student to professional. Since 1974, the company's ensemble for early career dancers, now called Ailey II, has been showcasing the extraordinary talent soon to populate the main company or other top dance troupes. Ailey II's annual spring showcase runs through this weekend with two programs mixing classic repertory with new works. On Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 and 7:30 p.m., the lineup includes 'Luminous' by Ailey II's artistic director, Francesca Harper, honoring the ensemble's 50th anniversary, and 'Down the Rabbit Hole,' a premiere from Houston Thomas that is inspired by 'The Matrix' films. That dance also appears on the bill for Thursday at 7:30 p.m., as well as on Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., joining 'John 4:20' by the exciting hip-hop duo Baye & Asa, and an excerpt from 'Divining' by the revered Ailey dancer and director Judith Jamison, who died in November. Tickets start at $59 on the Alvin Ailey website. BRIAN SCHAEFER Theater 'Othello' Denzel Washington made a Broadway box-office hit out of 'Julius Caesar' two decades ago. On the big screen, he has played Macbeth. Now he takes on Shakespeare's Othello, the honorable general and smitten newlywed. Jake Gyllenhaal is his foil as the perfidious Iago, who goads Othello into unreasoning jealousy with lies about his beloved Desdemona (Molly Osborne). Directed by Kenny Leon, a Tony winner for his revival of 'A Raisin in the Sun,' which also starred Washington. Read the review. 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' Theatergoing admirers of the HBO drama 'Succession' love to ascribe its savvy artistry partly to the considerable stage chops among its cast. Now Sarah Snook, the Australian actor who played Shiv Roy — older sister to Kieran Culkin's Roman — makes her Broadway debut in Kip Williams's intricately high-tech retelling of Oscar Wilde's classic novel. Snook takes on all 26 characters, a feat that won her raves, and a 2024 Olivier Award, in the London run of this Sydney Theater Company production. Read the review. 'The Outsiders' Rival gangs in a musical who aren't the Sharks and the Jets? Here they're the Greasers and the Socs, driven by class enmity just as they were in S.E. Hinton's 1967 young adult novel and Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film. Set in a version of Tulsa, Okla., where guys have names like Ponyboy and Sodapop, this new adaptation is the show with the rainstorm rumble you've heard about. It won four Tonys, including best musical and best direction, by Danya Taymor. With a book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine, it has music and lyrics by Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance) and Levine. Read the review. 'Redwood' The Tony winner Idina Menzel ('Wicked') returns to Broadway for the first time in a decade, teaming up with the relentlessly inventive director Tina Landau ('Mother Play') to tell the story of a woman who retreats from her usual life to heal from grief in a giant tree in a redwood forest. Conceived by Landau and Menzel, and seen in its premiere last season at La Jolla Playhouse in California, this new musical has a book by Landau, music by Kate Diaz and lyrics by Landau and Diaz. Read the review. Art 'The Orchid Show: Mexican Modernism' Conceived as a tribute to the great midcentury Mexican architect Luis Barragán (1902-88), this exhibition does an admirable job of balancing simplicity of conception with opulence of execution. Colored windows in one section turn cactuses orange and purple as the sun moves across the sky; potted orchids in the aquatic plants and vines gallery fill the room with fragrance even as they draw your attention to water lilies and water poppies; an adjoining show of stylish photographs by Martirene Alcántara, in the garden's nearby Ross Gallery, takes you directly into Barragán's sharp but explosively colorful walls and corners. But I'd recommend making some quick choices before the abundance goes to your head. Take a deep breath, pick a single flower — like a Phalaenopsis Taida Day, whose white sepals are marked with elegant purple veins — and look closely. Read the review. 'Weegee: Society of the Spectacle' How did the photographer Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee, go from hard-boiled shots of New York murder victims, criminal arrests and tenement fires during the 1930s and '40s — classic images that have never been equaled — to the cheesy distorted portraits of Hollywood celebrities that engaged him for the last 20 years of his life? That question is posed, if not persuasively answered, by this career-spanning retrospective. Like your family's ugly knickknacks that are sequestered in the attic, the lesser-known photographs of Weegee, from the late 1940s until his death in 1968, have been mostly ignored by critics as an embarrassment. This is a rare chance to view the work and make a judgment. Read the review. 'Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature' This is much more than a showcase of the Romantic icon 'Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog,' the wistful rear view Caspar David Friedrich painted circa 1817, which has come to America for the first time. The show has some surprises for audiences who associate Friedrich, and early-19th-century art more generally, with calm and tranquillity. Organized with three German museums, the exhibition includes 88 paintings and drawings, of rocks gleaming in the moonlight, solitary crucifixes in evergreen forests, and lonely Germans gazing out onto the sea. Read the review.
New York Times
01-03-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Hair Transplants and the New Male Vanity
Last year, I noticed that two comedians I like talked about getting hair transplants. One of them, Matteo Lane, named his special 'Hair Plugs & Heartache,' which opens with an extended bit about the transplant experience. I appreciated Lane's radical (and very funny) transparency regarding the cosmetic enhancement. He talked about the expense, described the 10-hour surgery and the long recovery, and joked about his hair growing in gradually 'like a Chia pet.' He's very happy with the outcome. Lane also talks about why he got his surgery in the United States instead of in Turkey. He said he didn't want to go through customs with his head swollen like the alien from the movie 'Mars Attacks': 'I want to be ugly at home.' Going to Turkey to get a cheaper hair transplant is such a cliché that there's an entire genre of social media video dedicated to depicting men's beef carpaccio heads on 'Turkish hairlines' flying back to their homes from Istanbul. The British tabloid The Mirror just ran a story about one regular bloke who traveled to Turkey for hair transplant surgery and is quoted as saying that he feels he has 'a new lease of life.' This is a marked change from just a few years ago, when men were less forthcoming about getting surgery on their domes. In 2021, my newsroom colleague Alex Williams wrote about the men who got hair transplants during the locked-down days of the pandemic. 'There's still that old stigma, where guys aren't supposed to worry about how they look and spend a lot of money on their appearance,' one hair transplant recipient said at the time. That stigma is very old, indeed. There's long been anxiety over hair loss among men, according to Martin Johnes, a professor of modern history at Swansea University in Wales who has researched masculinity, modernity and male baldness. But the stress really started ramping up in the 1930s, when men stopped wearing hats regularly and popular media started valorizing youthfulness more aggressively. In the 1930s, it was considered effeminate to pay too much attention to your appearance yet many of these men still wanted to take action if they were unlucky enough to go bald. They called baldness obscene, a major disaster and, poetically, a favored nightmare. One 30-year-old upholsterer said: While the bad feelings around baldness clearly aren't new, talking about those feelings in public is. And hair replacement technology has improved so much in the last couple of decades that transplants look real now — it's not just snake oil or cheesy infomercials for hair in a can anymore. I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, I have a bit of schadenfreude. Turnabout is fair play. Men have long been allowed to — with some exceptions — age naturally without being seen as less potent or virile or attractive. They have been allowed to steer clear of the unending pressure that women deal with for their whole lives. If we're expected to look young and hot forever in an increasingly superficial society where we're all selling ourselves on social media constantly, shouldn't they be, too? This question has more salience now in the age of affordable hair replacement. I'm also very much in favor of honesty around any kind of cosmetic procedures. It's far more damaging to normies when we allow celebrities to convince us that they just look like that, as if the rest of us are genetically inferior or doing something wrong. Most 40-something women do not have baby-smooth unlined foreheads from 'eating clean,' and most 40-something men do not have the same naturally lustrous crop of hair they had at 19. And yet, my more rational, generous self finds the whole thing to be kind of a bummer. It would be better for everyone if our idea of what is attractive expanded, and our ideals of beauty broadened to allow people to show their age without intervention. Older does not have to de facto mean uglier. It's not a moral judgment on anyone who chooses to get surgery or injections; believe me, I get it, and I can't promise I'll never succumb to the pressure again myself. I just hate that the pressure exists. I'll always ultimately believe that forcing men to adhere to ever narrower standards of beauty and torturing them with unrealistic expectations isn't the kind of equality I want. I also need to remind any men reading this who are feeling bad about their hair loss that Jason Statham and Taye Diggs exist. I'm trying out something new at the end of my newsletter, where instead of just adding links related to the topic I'm writing about, I'm going to chat a little bit about what I'm reading and watching for pleasure. We could all use a bit of fun and distraction from the news right now. If you've got any thoughts or comments, you can always drop me a line here. Thank you for being a subscriber Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.
