Comedy

Before Wanda Sykes became a comic, she worked as a procurement officer for the National Security Agency and had top security clearance. But she always loved telling jokes, and when a local radio station sponsored a talent show that included a comedy category, she decided to audition.

Comic and actor Ramy Youssef is the son of Egyptian immigrants and a semi-observant Muslim who co-created and stars in the semi autobiographical Hulu series 'Ramy,' and has new HBO comedy special.

Ray Romano's comedy special, Right Here, Around the Corner, is now streaming on Netflix. He spoke to Fresh Air in 2016 about the story behind the title of his hit sit-com Everybody Loves Raymond.

John Mulaney spent five years as a writer on SNL. He won an Emmy for writing his 2018 comedy special Kid Gorgeous, which was recorded live at Radio City, and is streaming on Netflix. In the animated series Big Mouth, about adolescence and puberty, Mulaney voices the character Andrew.

For about 48 hours in December, Kevin Hart was slated to host the 2019 Academy Awards. Then Hart was called out for homophobic jokes and tweets he made in 2010, and the Academy asked him to apologize.

Hart insisted that he already had apologized. Finally, after some back and forth, Hart stepped down from hosting, saying he didn't want to be a distraction.

The central character in the Netflix animated comedy series BoJack Horseman is a former sitcom star struggling with depression and alcohol addiction — who also happens to be a horse. Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg likens his series to that other show about a talking horse, Mister Ed.

Raphael Bob-Waksberg's animated comedy series for Netflix satirizes Hollywood using a mix of human and animal characters. "Part of the original pitch was like, 'What's Mr. Ed like behind the scenes?'" BoJack (a horse) is a depressed, alcoholic, sexist former sitcom star in the #MeToo era.

Phoebe Robinson has set out to change the demographics of comedy: "It's a very white male, straight male-dominated industry — and that can be exhausting," she says.

Saturday Night Live head writers and Weekend Update hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che are co-hosting the Emmy awards Monday night. They'll talk about their different approaches to it, and about working together on SNL.

Simon, who died Sunday, spoke to Fresh Air in 1996 about finding balance between his desire for leisure time and his need to write: "They were at odds," he says. "I'm my own odd couple."