Raleigh is first stop for comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's world tour

Tony Hinchcliffe is going on a world tour, and Raleigh's Goodnights Comedy Club is the first city on the list.

Posted 1:32 p.m. Jan 9, 2019 — Updated 1:34 p.m. Jan 9, 2019

Tony Castleberry

RALEIGH, N.C. — Tony Hinchcliffe is going on a world tour, and Raleigh’s Goodnights Comedy Club is the first city on the list.

Hinchcliffe, who has more than a decade of stand-up experience and a totally original Netflix special titled One Shot under his belt, is taking his popular Kill Tony podcast on the road and overseas this month and next.

On the podcast, comedians put their names in a bucket and Hinchcliffe and his comedian friends select names randomly. The comics do one minute of material each, followed by Hinchcliffe and company providing feedback and asking questions, which often leads “to a hilarious debacle.”

It’s like an open mic on steroids chased with pot brownies.

In addition to seeing Hinchcliffe in his element this week at Goodnights, some Triangle comedians will be doing their best to impress the professionals, and while the locals’ success in that endeavor isn’t guaranteed, laughter almost certainly is.

In addition to a live Kill Tony on Thursday, Hinchcliffe will do two stand-up shows each night Friday and Saturday at Goodnights.

During a Tuesday afternoon phone interview, Hinchcliffe and I discussed how he views his Netflix special three years later, how much better his jokes have gotten in that time, the global reach of podcasts and more.

Enjoy the interview, follow Hinchcliffe on Twitter and don’t forget The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes at the end.

Tony Castleberry: Three years ago this month, I interviewed you about the release of One Shot and to this day, I’ve still never seen a comedy special filmed like that one. Looking back, did you do what you wanted to do with that hour?

Tony Hinchcliffe: Whatever was gonna get me on Netflix at the time was exactly what I had to do. I had a Netflix special. I made it seven years into my career. I’m not quite sure if anybody has done that, a one-hour special (on Netflix) that soon into their career. Cinematically and execution wise, I love it.

It’ll always have a dear place in my heart. However, the material, looking back on it compared to my comedy now, I think it doesn’t hold up.

I think it’s the difference between a seven-year comedian and basically an 11-year comedian. It was just about to be my eighth year when I taped it, just before my eight-year anniversary. Here we are now and sometimes I think about the jokes I did in that special and I’m like, “Wow, I can’t believe that.” I’m just better now. I can’t believe that I was able to actually get away with it and actually do it.

TC: Part of that is just the passage of time and the growth that comes with that, but for a comedian, you can get so much better in just one year. Is that what you think happened for you in these last three years?

TH: No doubt. What that special gave me the opportunity to do is tour everywhere and do one-hour sets, multiple sets per night. It gave me that type of leverage.

Back then, in January 2016, even though it doesn’t seem like that long ago, there was no Dave Chappelle on Netflix. There was no Joe Rogan. There was no Chris Rock. The return of all these monster talents...that all happened after my special was out. So many people got to absorb it. It was such a great time to be on Netflix and the point is, three years later, I’ve been working that entire time. I’ve been to every city in the country pretty much and I’ve been to the big cities multiple times. I go back there because the bigger the city, the more they have Netflix, the more they listen to podcasts so the more they know me. I feel like since that special, I’ve grown by leaps and bounds and I’m excited about what I’m working on right now more than ever.

TC: What is your favorite part of doing the podcast?

TH: Singling out one part is almost impossible, but I will say that working with all of my funniest friends and watching them grow and just having them crack me up, the people I work with and travel with on a weekly basis.

If I had to put a close second in there, it would be watching the growth, sometimes, of the comedians whose names we pull out of the bucket.

(Monday) night we did an episode. I pulled a guy’s name out and before I even said his name into the microphone, I thought to myself, “This guy has bombed every time he’s been on the show. I could really use a good comedian right now, but here we go. This is what the show is.” Sure enough, he comes up and he has a great set and a great interview. He’s killing. He got a standing ovation from the panel during the interview portion. … He came in over the top, over me and Jeremiah (Watkins) and Doug Benson and Randy Sklar. We all just stood up and gave him applause. I made a point to call it out there. I go, “This is one of the most special things about this show. This guy’s been up here a few times. It’s always gone pretty rough and here he is getting a standing O from the comedians!”

It just goes to show: Don’t give up. Keep working it out. Go to open mics. Get better. Be in love with the game and this type of stuff happens. It’s much better to be the guy who bombs the first time on Kill Tony and then shows growth than to come in guns blazing with one good minute and then bomb every time after.

TC: That makes sense. The Kill Tony World Tour is kicking off in Raleigh, correct?

TH: You are absolutely right. This Thursday and yeah, I’m pumped about it.

TC: What goes into putting a world tour together? It seems like a lot of work.

TH: Well, the power of the podcast is one that I don’t think we’ve fully realized yet. The media doesn’t cover it, right? CNN isn’t reporting how Joe Rogan has 100 million people listening to his podcast every month.

They’re not breaking this news because they don’t want people to know about podcasts. They want you watching CNN on your cable TV. The news isn’t really reporting what’s happening, but if I have a friend who gets a Comedy Central show picked up, everybody congratulates them. They go crazy.

Well, I’ve got bad news for them. I have more people watching Kill Tony every week than are watching anything on Comedy Central because a podcast is global. We have a massive listenership in Dublin. We have a massive listenership in London, England, and when I announced London on Instagram and Twitter, I had nothing but people from Manchester, England, complaining that they needed their own show. At first, I was like, “You guys are the ones driving or jumping on a train for four hours because we’re going to London.” It turns out, so many people wanted it in Manchester that my agents and managers added a show in Manchester. … It looks like we’re on pace to sell out all the shows a month before the shows.

The cool part is that people want to be part of the event. A stand-up comedy thing feels like just your normal show that you see on specials and are a dime a dozen. You could go watch 1,000 specials on Netflix.

You can’t see anything like Kill Tony. We still have that underground vibe to us. We’re still, like, the cool kids. It’s not mass produced and it’s not an overproduced show. We’re not cutting commercials continuously. It feels underground and still raw even though we have a massive listenership.

Here it is, The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes:

Suggest A Correction