Comedy

Several months ago, the White House contacted the comedian to see if he'd be interested in having the president as his guest. "I just didn't think that it would ever happen," Maron says.

When Apatow was a teen he landed interviews with an impressive roster of comics for his high school radio show. Sick in the Head is a collection of those conversations, and more recent ones as well.

Ballers feels like the football equivalent of the hip-hop world of Empire, and The Brink is reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove, but has its own modern take on the nonsense of war.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Nanjiani moved to the U.S. for college. "I have a very conflicted relationship to where I'm from ..." he says. "It's still a struggle to negotiate some of it."

Melissa McCarthy plays a James-Bond-style undercover secret agent in the espionage comedy Spy. Critic David Edelstein says the movie lurches between slapstick, violence and crude humor.

The star of the FX series Louie talks about the pain of his first-ever open mic experience and the "massive gift" of taking care of others before himself.

Forte tells Fresh Air about landing a job on Saturday Night Live and learning on the set of Nebraska that acting is "all about commitment."

The two play satirical versions of themselves on the new FX show The Comedians. But in real life they share "a lot of commonalities," says Crystal.

Louis C.K.'s comedy and the new mockumentary The Comedians start Thursday on the FX cable network. Both are unusual and ambitious, says critic David Bianculli, but only one hits the ground running.

Noah Baumbach's new comedy is about a couple in their 40s who befriend 20-something hipsters and go wild. It gets off to a fun start, but two-thirds of the way through takes a surprising turn.

The Late Late Show with James Corden fills the post-David Letterman time slot on CBS. TV critic David Bianculli says that based on first impressions, Corden will "settle in nicely."

The Web series centers on a pot dealer who bikes around Brooklyn delivering to clients. Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair say they drew on their experiences and friends' generosity to make the show.

Wilmore is still fine-tuning The Nightly Show, which fill the late-night spot on Comedy Central vacated by Stephen Colbert. The show launched just as Wilmore's 20-year marriage was coming to an end.

On Monday night, Comedy Central premiered former Daily Show correspondent Larry Wilmore's new show. While Wilmore's sarcastic comments on clips were funny, the round-table discussion didn't sparkle.

The show, in its fourth season, was created by David Crane, who worked with LeBlanc on Friends. TV critic David Bianculli says its brand of satire is particularly timely and laugh-out-loud funny.

Ahead of The Colbert Report's last episode, Fresh Air listens back to interviews with Colbert. "I didn't realize quite how liberal I was until I was asked to make passionate comedic choices," he said.

Scott Saul's new book, Becoming Richard Pryor, describes how Pryor went from being raised by a grandmother, who was a bootlegger and madam, to being a transformative figure in entertainment.