Following Netflix’s bleak week of transphobic TED Talks, the comedy world was in dire need of a refresh. New Year, new comedy scene. Out with the hacks and in with the Katt. Welcome to Katt Williams’ 2024.
There’s no one better, realer, or funnier than Katt Williams. We all know and agree with this. Since coming to national prominence with Friday After Next and his seminal stand-up special, The Pimp Chronicles, Williams has built a comedic legacy on his integrity and impossibly high standards.
All of his mastery was on full display in his wide-ranging and fearless conversation with Super Bowl champion and ESPN correspondent Shannon Sharpe on Sharpe’s podcast, Club Shay Shay, on January 3. Across the nearly three-hour interview, Williams buried a host of his contemporaries, including Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, and Kevin Hart, accusing them of many crimes, including joke theft, being an industry plant, and most importantly, not being funny. Whether that’s true or not is up to the viewer—we’d be lying if we never laughed ourselves silly watching Harvey on the Feud—but Williams is coming at it from a different perspective. He knows who does the work of a comedian, e.g. writing, performing, and honing jokes, and those who don’t.
Amid all the accusations and life lessons Williams tossed off in the interview, several stood out as necessary for our readers in the new year. In the interest of understanding that not everyone has three hours to spend listening to a podcast (though many, many people certainly seem to have the time for that), we’ve compiled a list of the best, most explosive, and most illuminating moments from the now viral episode.
On Friday After Next’s rape scene: “The problem with Friday After Next is that we’re trying to make a classic comedy, and this comedy involves a rape, and rape is never funny no matter who it happens to and what the circumstances are.”
Much of the first chunk of the interview involves the casting of Friday After Next, particularly comedian Ricky Smiley saying he was actually cast as Money Mike instead of Katt Williams. Williams refutes that charge but recalls urging producers to remove a rape scene from the script, believing it would make the movie 20% funnier. Comedians often like to puff out their chests and say that anything can be funny. This is usually taken as a point of pride akin to someone who challenges themselves to eat spicy foods. It takes an even bigger one to say what isn’t funny.
On Cedric the Entertainer’s comedy specials: “[Cedric the Entertainer] can’t sing, can’t dance, and doesn’t write jokes. He did four comedy specials. They’re so bad, Shannon, they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi. Can I say that again for the audience? They’re so bad that they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi.”
Williams had his knives out for the Original Kings of Comedy. Much of his ire stems from what he believes to be the disrespectful treatment of the late Bernie Mac while Mac was on the tour with Harvey, Cedric, and D.L. Hughley (Williams is clear on the last King: he won’t tolerate D.L. slander on this podcast or any other). But he saves his best line for Cedric The Entertainer, whom Williams believes stole his “very best joke.” Cedric denies the allegation, but William’s analysis of Cedric’s comedy is even more brutal, saying that Cedric has four comedy specials that are so bad that they’re not on Netflix or Tubi. Netflix is one thing, but Tubi? This is a Hall of Fame insult.
On Kevin Hart: “No one in Hollywood has a memory of a sold-out Kevin Hart show, there being a line for him, ever getting a standing ovation at any comedy club. He already had his deals when he got here. Have we heard of a comedian that came to L.A., and in his first year in L.A., he had his own sitcom on network television and had his own film called Soul Plane that he was leading? No [...] What do you think a plant is?”
Look, we don’t know if this is true, but it certainly lines up with the type of comedian Kevin Hart is today. Is there a commercial, animated movie, crypto, or vegan fast food chain that doesn’t bear Hart’s face, name, or soul? This man is more of a commercial actor than a comedian. If we didn’t already have a Flo, he’d probably get that job, too. We don’t know if he’s always been an industry plant. But he’s certainly acting like one.
On how the internet hurts comedians: “It doesn’t allow the regular comic the ability to grow, is the real problem. Part of comedy is taking these jokes in January, and by March, I have begun to craft this joke [...] It begins to take on a different complexion because you have to deliver it to different people. This is what sharpens jokes. You then take those sharpened jokes and make a special. You don’t allow them the process. Now that’s that guy’s joke, and now the joke is everywhere.”
The speed with which people are expected to produce art is hurting the form as a whole. We could go back to the well of how bad Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle have been the past few years, and part of that is their incessant need to keep responding to their own actions. But that need to react is also tied up in the speed with which comics need to be produced. Williams talks a lot about throwing away hours and challenging his fellow comedians to do the same. The point that Williams appears to be getting at is all we have are rough drafts now. The enshittification of comedy, like all other places, relies on the complacency of good enough.
On happiness and people who align with losers: “I’m a happy person. I laugh all day long. I can’t even imagine the misery of these bums.”
“You having an unnatural allegiance to losers is unlike you.”
We don’t have a lot to say about this, but “I can’t even imagine the misery of these bums” and “an unnatural allegiance to losers” are two phrases that will be bouncing around our heads for the next 12 months.
On language: “There are words we can use for a while, and we use them for a while until someone says, ‘That ain’t a good word, we should stop saying that, it doesn’t make people feel good.’ And we stop saying the word, and we move onto new words.”
As all but the most stubborn and cruel understand, language changes. That doesn’t mean people from the past were bad people. That doesn’t mean we have to judge them. But it does mean that society is different from how it was 20 years ago. Heck, it’s very different than it was four years ago. We don’t really have much to add to this, but yeah, if more people listened to Katt Williams on this, they’d have much better material.
On smoking more weed than Snoop Dogg: “I’m actually a bigger smoker than Snoop, but I don’t mix anything with my weed. Nobody does 20 blunts a day like me for 30 years. Like I was the first person to have a weed roller, like someone’s job. I haven’t rolled a blunt in 20 years.”
Happy New Year, Katt Williams.