Name: Comedian Carol Leifer 'How To Write A Funny Speech' | Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast
Uploaded: 2025-08-21T18:53:34.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Comedian Carol Leifer 'How To Write A Funny Speech' | Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-21. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Comedian Carol Leifer 'How To Write A Funny Speech' | Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-21. Transcript available.

Comedian Carol Leifer 'How To Write A Funny Speech' | Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast

all right hey what's going on everybody it's bill bird it's time for the thursday
afternoon
just before friday monday morning podcast and as i always say as i always say
if if it's being
videotaped that means i have a very special guest because i don't have a bunch
of uh guests
on the podcast especially this year and um this guest that i have today i've
known about since
before i did stand-up comedy that's right uh one of the ogs of the new york
comedy scene uh the one
and only carol leafer who has a new book out which is right in my wheelhouse
because this is what i do
when i when i look at a book i the first thing as i do is i go to the back page
and i go how many pages
is this and how big is the printing oh the printing is a little small i'm not
gonna lie to you how many
pages 128 yes you can read the 130 you can read this and say i read a book
right uh it's called how to write a funny speech parentheses for a wedding bar
mitzvah graduation
and every other event you didn't want to go to in the first place yes um i
cannot tell you
i cannot tell you how much i needed this book earlier this year really because
i have avoided these
things you see my whole life i get afraid of these things because surprised
well i do stand-up
i know what's with your shirt hey fuck you like i can do that but to go up and
say something nice
yeah because i'm a dick all the time i've held back all these nice loving
feelings and then if they
if i feel like if i start to let them out yeah i'm gonna go dick for a meal
like dick for meal one of
my favorite nfl coaches could not give a post-game speech without breaking down
crying so i get so nervous
that that's gonna happen so finally what happened was i got asked to do a gig
that i could not turn
down yeah so a friend of mine was getting this award and couldn't turn it down
money-wise or uh
no no not money-wise it was it was like like uh it was for conan okay conan has
been such in my
corner my whole career um he's the first guy that let me do panel um him and
andy like if if conan and
andy ever need anything like you're there i have to be there or i am the
biggest piece of shit that
ever because that that's how amazing that they they've been for me so he was
getting this award
yeah the mark twain thing and i was like um you know they i you know conan
doesn't know but you know he
knows yeah yeah yeah so if i say no to that yeah he's gonna know yeah and it's
just like that that that
that was a night yes that was an event and this was a person that meant so much
to me and it was such
a big award i had to be there for him absolutely that you just had to so um and
i so i i said yes
and i swear it was hanging over me for a month of what are you going to say and
i would start to
write stuff and i would literally get emotional when i wrote it going like i'm
going to fall apart on
this and i'm going to look like an asshole i can't do this so i i i needed this
book what i what i don't
know what well what sparked it was okay rick mitchell the other guy i wrote it
with we've been to too
many events where people get up they make a speech and they shit the bed yes
and it's not only but not
in an entertaining way just no no and it puts a damper on the rest of the event
yes so that and
we felt like it's not that hard to give a good speech to give a funny speech so
we walk people
through it and it's important now because when you used to give a bad speech
and you know maybe it was
a funny funny story at thanksgiving now somebody's recording it yeah it's up on
the web oh yeah yeah so
that used to be like you know okay i'll shake that off in a week yes like i
feel bad for kids like you
used to just get hit in the nuts and that was it right and now it's just like
it it's it's on the
internet forever haunting you yes so we did it as a public service bill both
for the speaker and for the
listener yeah because i went to an event where the father of the bride got up
there and he started
listing her scholastic achievements well she went to nyu undergrad then did her
master's and it was such
a nightmare that people at the valet parker were talking about it as they were
leaving how bad his
speech was so you don't want this and you know and you know he loved his
daughter to death yes so he
probably didn't know what to say oh my god i've been to so many weddings uh i
went to one where the groom
was had to you know decide just he got pressured into giving a toast yeah and
he just wasn't ready for
it and it was always so awful they're still married but it just seemed like
this marriage isn't gonna last
because he was like uh she uh and we were like makes you laugh makes me laugh
thank you light of your life
light of my life um i went to one where the person was supposed to do it was a
set amount of time because
it's a wedding yeah so like this person speaks this person speaks and this
person speaks and then the first
course comes out and this person got into like a flop sweat thing uh and went
way over their time to the point
people were just staring down at the table and it it put like the food behind
and all of that so can
can you for because what i love about this is is you know my generation you
know if i hadn't started so
late with kids like if you're like 57 like me yeah you're you know oldest to
second oldest are probably
just getting married now uh-huh and two things like what's what's what are some
of the the key points
yeah to giving these speeches and how if you're actually hiding behind being a
dick but you're
actually a big hearted person that's going to fall apart how do you maintain
your composure so you can
say the nice things that you want to say right but not make anybody feel like
they're watching somebody
whose dog just died because that's the problem i have yeah all right here to
help you okay so the number
one rule that you already mentioned is not going on too long literally five
minutes and under because
people get out there you know five minutes and under yes you can even if it's
your own daughter
even if it's your own daughter can't do six minutes okay this is a late night
set
exactly okay right don't you usually get everything you want to say in a late
night set in five minutes
sure you do okay i'm just relieved when it's over uh but i'm right yeah that's
yeah that's all late
night was it went well i got the thumbs up yeah but when a regular person gets
up there you got to
keep it tight you know you don't want to sit there your phone's already updated
twice
yep let's get on with it let's get on with it leave them wanting more yes and
that's also a stand-up
rule leave them wanting more another thing that people do that i think is so
bizarre have you seen
people get up they start talking about the person you have no idea who they are
to the person they're
celebrating they just start talking and you're trying to figure out is this his
brother is this
his friend you know it becomes like an episode of dateline right like who is
this right so you have
to say who you are to the person now regarding heartfelt and funny see i'm very
surprised because most
stand-ups love giving speeches i'm very surprised to hear that you don't but
was it because you felt
you were going to have so much emotion that you were going to break down the
you know what i always do
yeah i catastrophize so and the second i get out of the my comfort zone a
comedy club right if there's
any sort of public speaking i have it in my head that everything's going to go
wrong everybody's going
to hate me my career's going to end and i have to move back in with my parents
like that's how far i go
so but what i've found in life is like i think it's a mountain and it's
literally like stepping up onto a
curb yeah so this year i've done three of those oh okay i did i did the conan
one yeah how did that
go by the way it went great well so what i learned was that what i had to do
was say two three nice
things and then make a joke there you go two three nice things make a joke and
then i could um or if
i'm gonna say something nice sort of give him a dig as as as i go so yeah um so
that that's how i i got
through the conan thing but i will say had i known that john mulaney was going
on first yeah like
because he's he's the best like that that guy is just like ridiculous right
yeah so if i knew he was
going up first i would have been like you don't need me i'm not going to like i
was sitting i think
i was sitting next to sarah silverman at that thing and like john mulaney goes
up and i'm looking
like we gotta follow this this is fucking ridiculous and then will farrell and
then
tracy morgan i'm like this one after another yeah yeah right so that's another
thing too is there
anything in there about feeling like an imposter like you don't you shouldn't
be there well it's
not you know the events that you go to or speak at it's a million comedians it
is good to know who
you're following because it's like any comedy club lineup you don't want to
follow somebody that
strong but um your regular person you know the thing that we also say in the
book and try to
convey to people is the bar is set very low yeah for a person when people get
oh i don't know what
to do i'm nervous you're supposed to be nervous we go out as stand-ups we have
butterflies you know
it's good it gives you energy but people are rooting for you and i think once
people know that
about giving a speech it really can calm self-deprecating is always like i i
feel like that is
like all right so this person then it gives them something to root for like if
you go up there and
you're like all right i'm amazing then you there's no way to you have to be
amazing right and then if
you're not quite amazing then people like yeah then they give you that energy
but you're up there
going like all right you know yeah i'm a carpenter i don't usually do this ha
ha ha you know my son and
then and then if you i i also think that in those things keeping it tight like
if you really want to
get compliments yeah at the end one of the best things about a speech is it
being concise yes get up
there and and and and and we all comedians have been guilty of staying too long
and then trying
to find that that that next and a laugh big enough to get off on and it's just
like
not necessary no and then you're also digging the hole deeper for the next
comedian who's got to come
up there with this right yeah this worn out i also think what's funny about
this is as much as it's a
generous thing for you to do it's also coming from a place of like if i have to
sit and watch another
person with no clue right one more and a microphone oh for a half all right so
wait a minute okay what
happened the last time where you finally like all right after all of my years
in company i need to
help these people yeah we just couldn't take it any more what what happened was
it a series of
speeches in a row in a short period it was a series it was a frat brother who
got up there and you know
had a drink then had like six more and how horrible is it when you go up there
you have to watch somebody
who's hammered giving a speech and they think it's great and you're sitting
there like oh my god this is
so embarrassing right i can't take this or sometimes people we did an
experiment like i helped a friend
of mine with her speech because i really couldn't take it and she this is very
larry david
like like like like these people is like yeah like you just like freaking out
about how bad they were
yeah um i i don't know i don't know this is something i don't know i can't you
know i wrote
on curb so it's very in my wheelhouse oh there you go yeah yeah so yeah i just
pictured him going wrap
it up and that being an episode right did you everyone was thinking it why why
can't i say it did you
really tell jeffrey to wrap it up when you were sitting in the audience um some
people use ai
this is the worst idea ever because we took i sat down with my friend we're
going over uh parts of
her speech to talk about her