Marc Maron Calls Time on His Long-Running Podcast Show
The 61-year-old made the announcement during a June 2
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Fox News
a day ago
- Fox News
Liberal comic details why he's retiring popular podcast, says format has acquired ‘cultural malignancy'
Stand-up comedian and podcast host Marc Maron told CNN on Thursday why he's retiring his popular podcast. Maron, an outspoken liberal and host of the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast, told CNN anchors John Berman and Kate Bolduan that he's just over the medium and noted that the podcast space has become oversaturated and has a negative edge to it. "I don't want to chase the cultural conversation through clickbait and garbage. You know, I don't want to be tethered," Maron said. "And now you're getting out just when everyone's 100% convinced that podcasts are deciding American elections and the future of mankind. Right? So why get out just when everyone catches up to you?" Berman asked. Maron, who announced he was retiring his podcast in June after 16 years, told the anchor that he never intended for the show to be about politics, and felt that it had run its course. "And we really chose not to do politics and just do kind of profiles and sort of candid conversation," he said, describing how he originally set up the show. "And we were audio, and we remained audio because we believe that's the most intimate, you know, form." He continued, noting that he's satisfied with how much content the show has produced and that he wants to get out with so many other podcasters competing on the scene. "And also, if we stop and at this point, you know, we have a body of work that stands on its own. And in terms of, yeah, podcasts being the new medium, that means there's 10,000 podcasts. Everyone's doing one, and it's just, the environment is a little cluttered and oversaturated." "We did what we set out to do. It was never really about money. It was about creating a unique and interesting show. And there's no reason to keep plugging along just because you can," Maron added. Bolduan followed up by asking what he thinks about podcasting today. Maron replied by saying it has allowed many podcasters to set up their own "little showbusiness empires" and has given people freedom to use them for "evil." "So, I mean, like any medium, it can be used for bad or evil," he said. "So, I mean, you know, what are you going to do? But it is the way the media landscape is working." Maron added, "Look, there's a sort of cultural malignancy to it in some ways and – but in some areas people are doing really interesting stuff." Though Maron didn't specify what this "cultural malignancy" is, in the past he has called out podcasters who have supported right-wing causes and President Donald Trump. Three days after podcast host Joe Rogan had Trump on his show just ahead of the 2024 election, Maron shared a blog post in which he wrote, "Popular podcasts became tribal and divisive years ago. Now they may be in the position to become part of the media oligarchy under the new anti-democratic government." Representatives for Marc Maron did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Atlantic
a day ago
- Atlantic
The Culture Changed. Marc Maron Stayed the Same.
Back in the 1990s, when Marc Maron began appearing on Late Night With Conan O'Brien as a panel guest, the comedian would often alienate the crowd. Like most of America at the time, O'Brien's audience was unfamiliar with Maron's confrontational brand of comedy and his assertive, opinionated energy. (In 1995, the same year he taped an episode of the HBO Comedy Half-Hour stand-up series, Maron was described as 'so candid that a lot of people on the business side of comedy think he's a jerk' in a New York magazine profile of the alt-comedy scene.) But through sheer will, he would eventually win them back. 'You always did this thing where you would dig yourself into a hole and then come out of it and shoot out of it like this geyser,' O'Brien recently told Maron. 'It was a roller-coaster ride in the classic sense.' Maron, though, was rarely attempting to sour the room. 'I went out there wanting that first joke to work every time! It just did not,' he told O'Brien. Even when he eventually achieved some mainstream success through his long-running podcast, WTF With Marc Maron, Maron's comedy remained an acquired taste, equal parts cantankerous and ruminative. Still, he reached that success by maintaining his creative voice, not by compromising it. It's an approach partially born out of necessity, he acknowledges in Panicked, his new HBO Max special: 'I don't know if all I'm doing is mining for gold in a river of panic.' Panicked is the third special from Maron this decade, following 2020's End Times Fun and 2023's From Bleak to Dark. In this loose trilogy, the comedian contends with catastrophic current events—climate emergencies, COVID, the gradual rise of authoritarianism—while addressing difficulties in his personal life. These specials feature Maron at his most controlled: He delivers long-form cinematic narratives while dipping into character work (affecting voices, embodying personas) and experimenting with physical comedy. One recurring subject in Panicked is, for lack of a better term, all varieties of shittiness: Maron talks about his cat Charlie's diarrhea troubles and the discovery of rat feces in his crawl space, which eventually prompts an existential spiral about why his home has seemingly become a rest-stop bathroom for the neighborhood rodents. The theme—this feeling of being surrounded by the muck—extends beyond the purely domestic. As he sees it, America has declined under fascistic leadership; democracy itself has nose-dived in part because of comedians who are overly obsessed with censorship; Maron's father's mind is slowly decaying because of his dementia. In one digression, Maron muses about various possibilities for his own corpse once he dies: a cemetery burial where no one will visit him; a cremation where his ashes will be possibly mixed into his cat's food; an environmentally friendly burial in a forest that will one day be developed into housing. Some of these seem like terrible options for the afterlife, frankly—and while this riffing is funny, it's also unavoidably dark. 'I don't think that I ever got into this to be entertaining,' Maron tells his audience. It's an instructive, revealing sentiment he's conveyed many times before, especially on WTF, which he recently announced will end this fall. Even when Maron was a younger, more aggressive comic, his jokes were always a vehicle for recursive self-reflection. He held people's attention by exposing his psyche and excavating humor from the act of emotional vulnerability. At the same time, Maron's work has never been about personal confession for its own sake. Consider a lengthy bit from Panicked during which he recalls sexual trauma he may have experienced as a child. When Maron and his brother were younger, he explains, they had an older male babysitter who asked them to sexually service him. Maron isn't certain whether he complied (though he admits that it's distinctly possible), but he proceeds to itemize other childhood traumas, such as being shamed for his weight by his mother, that he considers 'much worse than blowing the babysitter.' Maron begins the bit by insisting that he's processed the experience; the story isn't meant to solicit pity or serve as the basis for a TED Talk–like speech about how to overcome hardship. Instead, it's a springboard to explore how people in his orbit worked through the abuse that they've inflicted on others. He digs into what he describes as his mother's neglectful parenting; he reimagines his old babysitter as a current-day 'anti-woke' comedian who brags about his sadistic exploits. Anguish is redirected into forceful speculation, all without sacrificing the laughs. Since WTF premiered in 2009, Maron's temperament has certainly softened. But his perspective, and the way he manages his emotions, have remained remarkably consistent from the jump. Consider the gap in personal circumstance between Panicked and 2009's Final Engagement, his third comedy album and some of the most bitter stand-up I've ever heard. Though Final Engagement was recorded at a personal low and Panicked arguably at a professional peak, he's recognizably the same person in both works. His subjects and their contexts may change, but Maron's style—his cheeky and dyspeptic delivery, his wound-up body language, the way he can use a stool as rhetorical punctuation—has been constant, a sign not of stagnation but of truth. While it's possible to divide Maron's career into phases—not famous and then sort-of famous, grumpy and less grumpy—it's better to view his body of work as a continuum. In End Times Fun, he directed outrage toward the normalization of California's worsening wildfire seasons; by Panicked, the normalization has set in, and he tells a story about needlessly evacuating his home during the fires that swept through Southern California earlier this year. Similarly, the rage he expressed in his following album, 2006's Tickets Still Available, about George W. Bush using the potential capture of Osama bin Laden as an electoral strategy, is not dissimilar from his incredulous anger in Panicked regarding voters eager to say retarded without reprisal. If Maron's perspective has changed, it's in relation to evolving cultural norms. In Panicked, Maron describes his phone as his 'primary emotional partner' with sarcastic resignation, a stance that amasses some historical weight given that, in 2002, he closed his first album by mocking the frenzied dread of a person who had forgotten their cellphone. He's also surrendered some ground on his long-standing discomfort with psychiatric medication now that he takes an anti-anxiety pill. ('Just to report in, it's not working,' he deadpans.) But personal growth is neither a straight line nor a total transformation; sometimes it happens by remaining present and real in a world that offers little solid footing. The pleasure of Maron's stand-up is witnessing him use his voice to continually revise thoughts amidst shifting winds—not a conventional sort of entertainment, but a style that still counts for something.
New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
How to watch Marc Maron's new special ‘Panicked': Time, streaming info
New York Post may be compensated and/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our links. Featured pricing is subject to change. Two years after his first HBO stand-up special was released, comedian, actor, and podcaster Marc Maron is returning to the network with his sixth overall special, 'Panicked.' Per HBO, Maron 'offers up his nuanced perspective on our increasingly uncertain world.' In a statement to the network, the comedian, 61, called the new special 'the best work [he's] done.' Earlier this week, Maron revealed that it cost 'about $50,000' to license just one minute of Taylor Swift's 'Bigger Than the Whole Sky' for a pivotal joke in the special. 'Marc Maron: Panicked': what to know When: August 1, 8 p.m. ET August 1, Channel: HBO HBO Streaming: Max In addition to the brand-new special, Maron has had a huge year; he played a supporting role in Apple TV+'s surprise hit 'Stick' and he'll appear in 'The Nice Guys 2,'. A documentary about him, titled 'Are We Good?', will get a theatrical release later this fall. This year will also mark the end of a major chapter: his 'WTF with Marc Maron' podcast, which he started 15 years ago, will come to a definitive end this fall after over 1,600 celebrity interview episodes. Here's what you need to know to watch 'Marc Maron: Panicked' live or on-demand. 'Marc Maron: Panicked' release date: 'Marc Maron: Panicked' will air tonight, August 1, at 8 p.m. ET. How to watch 'Marc Maron: Panicked': If you don't have HBO through traditional cable, you'll need an HBO Max subscription to watch the new stand-up special. HBO Max, which you can subscribe to directly or via Prime Video, starts at $9.99/month with ads. That's not the only way to subscribe, though. Sling TV is among the best value for money among live tv streaming services, thanks to some great offers and add-ons. You'll need Sling's Blue plan with a Max add-on to watch HBO live. And when you subscribe to HBO Max through Sling, the money-saving never stops! You'll get 50% off your first month, plus $5 off your bill every month after that. 'Marc Maron: Panicked' teaser trailer: Why Trust Post Wanted by the New York Post This article was written by Angela Tricarico, Commerce Streaming Reporter for Post Wanted Shopping, Page Six, and New York Post's streaming property, Decider. Angela keeps readers up to date with cord-cutter-friendly deals, and information on how to watch your favorite sports teams, TV shows, and movies on every streaming service. Not only does Angela test and compare the streaming services she writes about to ensure readers are getting the best prices, but she's also a superfan specializing in the intersection of shopping, tech, sports, and pop culture. Prior to joining Decider and The New York Post in 2023, she wrote about streaming and consumer tech at Insider Reviews
