Jeremiah Watkins Talks New Special ‘Crazy Pizza’ & Nearly 5-Year Journey Toward Getting Passed At The Comedy Store – Comedy Means Business Podcast

For Jeremiah Watkins, as for many comics, building a show biz career has been a gradual process — the result of a decades-long, consistent grind in a variety of lanes, rather than one single flash-in-the-pan moment.

A Kansas native, Watkins went all-in on the pursuit of his dream after moving to Los Angeles in the late 2000s. A formally trained improvisor, as well as a longtime stand-up, character actor and podcaster, he was a founding member of the cultural phenomenon Kill Tony who served as its bandleader for more than 200 episodes, back when it was recorded out of the intimate space at the famed Comedy Store known as The Belly Room. Watkins is better known these days, though, as the creator, producer and host of Stand Up on the Spot, a live show requiring stand-ups to generate material off the cuff, in response to audience suggestions. The show, which Watkins deems “the hardest in comedy,” has over the last 16 years given a spotlight to hundreds of comics, both emerging and established, conjuring its own community while helping to bolster the broader stand-up ecosystem.

For reasons including the viral success of Stand-Up on the Spot, which releases on YouTube, Watkins has become better known to some for improv, character and crowd work than stand-up itself — which meant he set a specific goal for himself when approaching his third comedy special, Crazy Pizza. Whereas his first two-hour specials contained some audience interaction, he’d build his third out fully around meticulously crafted written material.

“The goal after this special,” Watkins says, “is for people to watch and, if they hadn’t seen my stand-up, I want them to be like, ‘I did not know he was this good of a stand-up comedian.'”

Today’s guest on our Comedy Means Business podcast, Watkins released Crazy Pizza on YouTube on September 10. In the special, filmed at The Comedy Vault in Batavia, Illinois, he mines the absurdity of everyday family life as the father to two young boys, tackling topics ranging from his four-year-old’s serial killer energy to specific rules (“biting is for food”) laid out for his kids, and much more. The special marks a big bet for Watkins, who directed the hour and self-financed it, putting ample resources into the creation of an elaborate, on-theme pizza parlor backdrop.

During his time on the pod, Watkins goes deep into the making of the special, as well as his experience coming up in comedy — including the “blood, sweat, and tears situation” that was getting passed at The Comedy Store, something that took him four-and-a-half years of consistent effort. He details the origins of Stand Up on the Spot and sharpening his character work during his time with Kill Tony, while also getting into the surprise commercial windfall that bankrolled his early comedy career, balancing family life with his road dog lifestyle, his friendship with fellow jack of all trades Adam Ray, revisiting his history with Comedy Central while taping a short set for their upcoming series Comedy Central Stand-Up Selects, directing and producing specials for friends like Jack Assadourian Jr., and more.