Jesse David Fox

Jesse David Fox is the host of Vulture’s Good One. Follow him on Twitter here. Follow Good one on Twitter here.

Kindly introduce yourself and Good One!
My name is Jesse David Fox. I’m a senior editor at New York Magazine’s entertainment site, Vulture, where I focus on comedy. On forms I say I am a writer, even though only a small part of my time is spent, you know, writing words. Mostly I host Good One: A Podcast About Jokes. Each episode a comedian (or comedy writer or comedy director) comes on to play a clip of one of their jokes (or sketches or funny scenes) and discusses how they wrote it and how it fits into what they are trying to do with their comedy. I’ve found there are two types of listeners: People who typically listen to serious podcasts and this is the funniest thing they subscribe to or people who typically listen to comedy podcasts and this is the most thoughtful thing they listen to. I love both groups equally. I haven’t sat down to count, but I’ve done almost 100 interviews.

If someone hasn't listened to Good One before (well, shame on them!), where should they start?
Don’t shame them! People are busy! To those people, I say, Hello, thank you for giving me your time. And I’d tell these people: I have had a lot of very good guests, some of who are very famous, so scroll through the episodes and download one featuring a comedian you already like. That said, I think “Moshe Kasher’s Crowd Work” and “Taylor Tomlinson’s Virginity” are really good recent examples of what I’m trying to do as an interviewer.

What has interviewing people for Good One changed how you feel about comedians?
Before I started  the podcast, I idealistically believed comedians to be special, and that good comedy comes from deliberate, thoughtful work. The most rewarding thing about the podcast is how every episode, this belief is affirmed. My feeling about comedians didn’t change, but it was solidifed. I always felt comedy should and could be taken seriously, but I wasn’t sure if comedians would participate in letting me do so. I’m forever grateful they’ve trusted me not to ruin the joke. So, if anything changed, it’s that I now feel closer to comedians.

One of my favorite episodes was with Gilbert Gottfried about the joke The Aristocrats. I started listening thinking I wouldn't like it, but the episode actually gave me HUGE appreciation for Gilbert Gottfried and the joke. Was that your intention, here? Is that always your intention?
Thank you! That’s nice to read, as broadly that was my intention. Though, if you’ll indulge me, I tend to be a bit more romantic about it. My intention with that episode, like all episodes, is to not only have the audience leave with an appreciation of the comedian, but also show them how they should appreciate them. My goal is to try to fall in love with the guest (not in a romantic way, or familial way, but a sort of warm, close obsession) in the research stage and then, in the interview, try to convey to the audience what I love about this person, by asking questions that I believe will result in answers that showcase specifically what makes the person unique, special, themselves. 

Gilbert was an interesting case, because I knew he was fascinating, but I also knew how deep he is into his persona. So, really I was trying to tell a story about this persona and how and why he uses it. tried to go deeper into what drives him to make a joke “too soon” after a tragic thing happens. It became clear, he can’t not make a joke about it because being this persona is how he copes with and confronts the harsh realities of life. It’s a true compulsion. I’m not necessarily trying to defend any of his jokes. I just want to try to convey the person as they are and allow the audience to make their own judgements.

Are there any comedians you would never want to interview on Good One? (You don't have to be specific.)
Yes.

Are there any comedians you are dying to interview on Good One?
Yes, so many. I always say Tina Fey, Chris Rock, and Mel Brooks are my dream guests. I don’t say Steve Martin and Albert Brooks, as it seems like they just don’t talk about comedy anymore in interviews. It seems like Adam Sandler is doing interviews again, but I’d feel so much pressure since I wrote 20,000 words about him. I recently interviewed Chelsea Peretti, who I have been dying to have on since I started the show. This is fun to think about, so here are some more people: Cecily Strong (maybe with James Anderson), Adele Givens, George Wallace, Rory Scovel, Ron White, Hannibal Buress, Paul F. Tompkins, Randy Newman, Lorne Michaels, Marlon Wayans, something with The Simpsons. My dream of dreams is to find and interview whoever wrote the joke “Pokemon Go to the polls” for Hillary Clinton.

Women podcasters are often criticized for their voices. What is your relationship to yours?  How would you describe your voice?
Fans criticize how I speak about once a quarter. Usually it’s about how I say things like “sort of” or “insomuch” too often. For a while they made fun of how often brought up the movie The Prestige. Recently I got that I laugh too much. Someone once complained about how my intros were awkward and stilted and that I should try writing them out ahead of time. Little does he (I’m sure it was a he) know, I write them to sound like that on purpose. I mention all these laughably minor critiques of my whatever voice to underline how grotesque and indefensible the treatment of female voices is. I am very privileged in that from the very beginning, Ira Glass normalized a type of voice as a part of the vocabulary of podcasting - nasal, stammery. 

Before I had a podcast, I interviewed John Mulaney for like, 90 minutes. It was a nice time. About an hour in, I heard his publicist and our photo editor laughing. Later I learned, they were making fun of how we sounded the same. John’s voice is a little higher and is more extroverted, and mine a little lower and introverted, but we have similar pacing and lilts. So it’s that, mixed with Ira Glass, I guess.

Are there too many podcasts?
No. I believe people are overwhelmed by the choices, but I do not blame quantity. The problem is podcasting is an incredibly new form and people need more and better help understanding what they like and how to find it. For example, there are so many more songs than podcasts, but people have so many tools at their disposal to understand why they like what they like, so they can find more things in that vein. I think the work y’all and Nick Quah are doing to create a vocabulary for podcast criticism and journalism will be a game changer, because right now mostly there are just broad genre categories, Apple’s algorithmic lists, and certain publications’ subjective lists. Take Good One, the podcast I know best :) I think it makes more sense as a recommendation to people who listen to Invisibilia, and other shows that feature psychology-driven storytelling, than The Joe Rogan Experience.

Thanks, Jesse!