Josh Johnson on Breaking Tradition for His Comedy Special (Exclusive)

Josh Johnson’s dropping his first HBO comedy special.

“Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi sat down with Josh, who pulled back the curtain on what it takes to put a comedy special on and why this is one is so different.

He said, “I think that for this one, my overall concept and the way that it all came together feels very different. It’s something that’s never happened before. For the level of support that I have and the amount of time — 26 seconds — that we got to take to come up with something really unique… I mean, I just I can’t say enough. Like, the straight-up support has… been really, really special… Very thankful.”

As for what it takes to put this on, Josh said, “I mean, you have to, I guess, first have an hour’s worth of things to say. That would help. And then in this case, I had worked on this concept with the director of the special for a while and wanted to make sure that I was doing something that really felt like sidestepping a standard format and everything. And so we didn’t get to… rehearse it… Like, it’s kind of a miracle that it all came together.”

He went on, “I feel very strongly that the future of the form is in breaking free from a standard model and I think that we did that with this and I look forward to doing it in the future.”

Shedding light on his process when Mona asked how he comes up with his jokes, Johnson shared, “I just don’t do anything else. I think it’s mostly, like, just the things I find interesting or the things that I think that other people maybe skip throughout the day. Like, I think I’m fascinated by things that are mundane and pretty boring… which has been good for the most part.

“It’s been good for that fodder because it is something we all share and there’s sort of a universal aspect there and then you can just pull from it endlessly because we all engage with some of the stuff differently.”  

He elaborated, “I don’t know when the last time was you took the bus, but the bus now versus the bus before, the war is very different… Like, initially when you were taking the bus before the war in Iran, you were just taking the bus, and now you’re taking the bus with people who know they have a car but cannot afford gas right now, right? So, it’s a much angrier bus… This bus is a battle and it’s, like, because it’s also full of people who know they shouldn’t be on the bus, but I was bus people before the war and I’m bus people still. So now when I take the bus, I’m just noticing who’s visiting.”

The future is bright for Josh, who also has a tour. He commented, “The special is called ‘Symphony’ and there’s a lot of surprises in it and everything, but on top of that, the tour that I’m going on, like comedy band camp starts right after. So, usually you’ll see comedians, like, work on their hour all year and then put out that hour that they worked on all year through their touring as a special.”

He went on, “I tried to do something that was a bit the opposite, where you start with the special and the special is a jumping-off point for your new theme that you are going to go on tour with different stuff. And so I think doing that in reverse could be an interesting look for the audience.”