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The Open
Hey Zingers,
Welcome to Issue #01.
Quick disclaimer: if you want trigger warnings or looking for a newsletter that celebrate 'brave conversations' then you've taken a wrong turn somewhere on the internet. This newsletter is for people who think a roast is a love language and comedy should occasionally leave a bruise.
Every Monday night, we do the homework. We watch the specials, sift through the podcasts, scour the internet's dark corners, and clip the sets — digging through hours of content to find the three minutes actually worth your attention.
Because life's too short to spend two hours watching a mediocre Netflix special just to find one joke your group chat would've appreciated. Tonight: Kill Tony just sold out MSG twice and is going back Sunday to tape a Netflix special, a new HBO special that has no business being this good, and three jokes calibrated to get progressively worse for your career.
Delivered: Monday, August 10, 2026
🎙️ Weekly Feature
Kill Tony just sold out Madison Square Garden. Twice. In a row.
Friday night. Saturday night. Two completely different lineups, two different bucket pulls, 20,000 people each night laughing at strangers who walked up to a microphone with sixty seconds to prove they're funny. Most of them weren't. That's the whole point.
Kill Tony at MSG isn't just a big room — it's the clearest proof that roast comedy is the only format that scales. You can put prestige drama in an arena and it dies. You put Tony Hinchcliffe in an arena with a bucket full of names and a panel that includes whoever showed up that week, and it somehow gets louder the bigger the room gets. The format brutalizes amateurs and celebrities equally, which is why it works at 200 people in Austin and 20,000 people in New York.
Why it works: Kill Tony is the only show on earth where the comedian who bombs in thirty seconds is just as entertaining as the one who kills. The roast panel's reaction to failure is half the show. That's a hard thing to design and Tony Hinchcliffe basically stumbled into it and now it sells out the Garden.
Both nights are available on Kill Tony+ (ad-free, on Supercast — launched August 5). If you were in those seats this weekend, you already know. If you weren't, this is your homework before Issue #02.
📋 Open Mic Bites
Ramy Youssef's "In Love" dropped on HBO this week — third special, filmed at the Hideout in Chicago, directed by Christopher Storer (creator of The Bear). Reddit's r/standup has been loud about it all week. Not roast, but it's sharp and weird in a way that earns its place here. 55 minutes, worth every one.
Leonard Ouzts: "Lil Sumn Sumn" dropped today on Gorilla Comedy+. If you don't know Leonard Ouzts yet, dark and absurd is the lane. His clips have been making the rounds on X this week ahead of the drop. Find out now before everyone else does.
Katt Williams and Kevin Hart ended their years-long feud live on Netflix — Williams made a surprise appearance at the Kevin Hart Roast (May 2026, hosted by Shane Gillis), they traded shots, then hugged it out on stage in front of the whole dais. The clip has been living rent-free on Instagram ever since. If you haven't seen it, that's what the queue is for.
Jeff Ross's "Take a Banana for the Ride" is on Netflix — filmed from his Broadway run at the Nederlander Theatre. Stage 3 colon cancer, one Broadway show, now cancer-free. The man turned his own diagnosis into a closing night and then put it on streaming. Worth knowing about if you missed it in March.
Quote of the week: "I've been doing this for 30 years. I know where every line is. I just choose to stand on the other side of it." — Jeff Ross
😂 The Joke Drawer
🍞 Dad Joke of the Week
I asked my doctor if I was healthy enough for sexual activity.
He said he'd need to see the other person first.
🔥 Dirty Joke of the Week (tap to reveal — you've been warned)
What do you call the useless skin around a man's body?
His ex-wife's lawyer.
🚨 The One That'll Get You Fired
My therapist told me I have trouble letting things go.
We'll see about that when she gets to her car tonight.
If HR asks, you read this on a competitor's newsletter.
🎙️ One to Watch
Stavros Halkias — if you're not already following him, fix that.
Built his following the right way — years on podcasts, Kill Tony appearances, grinding clubs before anyone cared — and then "Live at the Lodge Room" came out and made it impossible to ignore him. He's self-deprecating in the way roast comics are self-deprecating: not vulnerability, weaponized self-awareness. Unfiltered, a little chaotic, and the kind of funny that makes you feel like you're in on something most people haven't found yet.
He's not a household name. He will be. You heard it here first.
🗺️ Comedy Mic Check
Each city: the big show to know about this week, plus the two clubs worth your time.
City | Big stage this week | Club pick 1 | Club pick 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
NYC | Comedy Cellar — late-night lineup, Macdougal St. | Gotham Comedy Club — rotating headliners all week | |
LA | The Comedy Store — Original Room nightly | Laugh Factory Hollywood — open to walk-ins most nights | |
Nashville | Zanies Nashville — touring headliners nightly | Third Coast Comedy Club — local scene, good for discovery | |
Austin | Check Moody Center listings — no comedy confirmed | Cap City Comedy Club — headliner weekend run | The Velveeta Room — dive bar, $5, always weird in the best way |
Boston | Laugh Boston — weekend headliner run | Nick's Comedy Stop — oldest room in Boston, still the best | |
DC | Check Warner Theatre listings — quiet this weekend | DC Comedy Loft — reliable weekly spot | Drafthouse Comedy — good crowds, reserved seating |
Chicago | Check United Center listings — nothing confirmed | Zanies Chicago — long-running, consistently booked well | Laugh Factory Chicago — open mic nights mid-week |
💬 Crowd Work
Reply to this email with your worst roast of someone you love. Best one gets featured and roasted back in a future issue
📼 ICYMI
Shane Gillis just broke two Guinness World Records and nobody made a big enough deal about it.
July 17, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia. 73,946 people in the seats — the largest audience ever for a solo comedian, beating a record that had stood since 2008. Total tickets sold: 77,047. Surprise guests included Dave Chappelle, Meek Mill, Three 6 Mafia, Jason Kelce, and Jordan Mailata. A comedy show at an NFL stadium with Meek Mill and Three 6 Mafia. That sentence should not be real and yet here we are.
The guy SNL fired before he ever hosted just sold out a football stadium and broke two world records in front of his hometown crowd. Comedy is in a weird and excellent place right now.
RATE TONIGHT'S SET
What'd you think?
🎤🎤🎤🎤🎤 Absolute headliner
🎤🎤🎤🎤 Solid set
🎤🎤🎤 Decent open mic energy
🎤🎤 Needs work
🎤 Booed off stage
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