Marc Maron Has Regrets About Popularizing the Comedian-Hosted Interview Podcast
Comedian Marc Maron recently announced that he will lock the gates for good this fall and wrap up his popular podcast WTF.
Over the course of the past 16 years, the show has featured a number of memorable, surprisingly candid interviews with legends like Robin Williams, Iggy Pop and Carol Burnett, plus the occasional awkwardly combative chat with controversial comedy stars like Gallagher and Carlos Mencia.
Maron also hosted a sitting president in his cat-filled garage and became one of the few comics to air their SNL audition grievances right to Lorne Michaels’ face.
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His interviews were sometimes uncomfortably honest, with the host unafraid (and even eager) to discuss his own insecurities and past shitty behavior. But the podcast's frank atmosphere allowed us to get to know guests in a setting that seemed to have far fewer guardrails than the typical celebrity interview show. But the big question is: Did Marc Maron create a monster?
On the most recent episode of WTF, Maron broke the news about the show’s impending end, not just to the audience, but also to guest John Mulaney. And while Maron was quick to note that he's proud of the show, he also expressed a feeling of deep regret for having had a hand in popularizing the “some comedian interviews a guest on a podcast” format that has taken over the internet.
“I feel like I’ve partially done an amazing thing for culture, but on the other side of that, I feel like I’ve released the Kraken,” Maron confessed.
Mulaney countered that the metaphorical mythological beast “was going to come out no matter what.”
“It's always twofold when you're at the beginning of a new medium,” Maron pointed out. “There's a lot of like, ‘Wow, the freedom of it!’ And you know, I think those words are said before anything turns into a horrendous malevolent force.”
“Before you build a commune in Idaho you remark upon the wide open land,” Mulaney agreed.
While Maron doesn’t mention anyone by name, it seems pretty clear that he’s talking about comedians like Joe Rogan, Andrew Schulz and Theo Von, whose one-on-one interview podcasts all played host to Donald Trump during the 2024 election season. At the time, Maron, who again didn’t specify any names, penned a blog post arguing that “when comedians with podcasts have shameless, self-proclaimed white supremacists and fascists on their show to joke around like they are just entertainers or even just politicians, all it does is humanize and normalize fascism.”
That being said, since The Joe Rogan Experience premiered mere months after WTF, and Rogan has claimed that his biggest inspiration was actually Tom Green, Maron probably shouldn’t beat himself up too much.
