#1712 - Bert Kreischer (Part 2)

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Bert Kreischer (0:19)

I was just talking with Joe Coy about this, where you get inspired by the comics, where you go, God damn it, man, I'm not working hard enough. I'm not doing enough.

Joe Rogan (0:28)

That's why it's good to see people that are really good, right? Because you get that juice, just like that fuel that you get from Goggins, you get that fuel from watching Chappelle or watching Bill Burr.

Bert Kreischer (0:36)

Or watching you guys all touring, doing these big shows, and I go.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

It's interesting. It's exciting.

But we have to resist the idea of being jealous, because it's so common in our world.

Bert Kreischer (0:50)

Or just subtly conty, or taking shots at kings. Tom and I talk about this on Two Bears, One Cave, that's coming up.

But Chris Rock got so big for a while that I think people stopped paying the respect he deserved.

Joe Rogan (1:07)

100%.

Bert Kreischer (1:08)

And when he got COVID, I realized just how important Chris Rock was to me. Because I think Norm had just passed, and I was the biggest Norm fan in the world.

And then Chris Rock got sick, and I did a deep dive on my own head of just how fucking great that guy is.

Joe Rogan (1:27)

Well, if you go back to Bigger and Blacker, or you go back to Bring the Pain, those are two of the best specials of all time. If you want to look at your top 10 comedians of all time, in my opinion, you have to have Chris Rock in there.

Bert Kreischer (1:41)

Without a doubt, there's no questions out about it.

Joe Rogan (1:43)

You know who's the dark horse?

Bert Kreischer (1:45)

Hold on, give me a second. Man, I have a lot of dark horses by, I don't know.

Joe Rogan (1:50)

Martin Lawrence. Martin Lawrence in the 1990s.

Bert Kreischer (1:54)

So.

Joe Rogan (1:54)

People forgot. You must be crazy.

Bert Kreischer (1:56)

Dude.

Joe Rogan (1:57)

Oh, you so crazy, rather? You so crazy, and he had a couple other specials that were on that same level. He had two or three specials that were like lightning bolts. And it's hard because you gotta compare them for the time. Comedy's a weird thing, man. Even comedy movies from the 80s or 90s, that you thought were the shit, some of them just don't hold up for whatever reason. And stand-up comedy, a lot of it just seems different because the culture's so different, because the world's so, like, everything's evolving and changing so fast. It's hard.

But there's a few guys from the 1990s that would just obliterate. Like, you forgot how good comics can be. And I remember I saw Martin Lawrence at the comic store many times. Like, seven, ten times when he was in his prime.

Somewhere around then, I remember he would come by and just sell out the main room, and he would just sit there and watch him murder.

SPEAKER_4 (2:56)

I mean, murder.

Bert Kreischer (2:57)

I wish I'd seen that.

Joe Rogan (2:58)

Like, people falling out of chairs.

I mean, screaming in agony because they're laughing so hard. And it was, you know, this was 1994 Martin Lawrence was the king, dude. I'm telling you.

Bert Kreischer (3:12)

The thing that Chris Rock brought, and once again, I'm-

Joe Rogan (3:15)

But hold on, let me tell you something before we go any further. One of the things that happened to Chris Rock was he had to follow Martin Lawrence.

Bert Kreischer (3:25)

At the store?

Joe Rogan (3:26)

No, no, they did a show together. And Chris Rock talked about it. He talked about it, how it forced him to tighten up his act because he had to follow Martin Lawrence. And he realized, and no disrespect intended, white people, he said that he had been playing in too many white rooms.

And he realized he had gotten a little bit lazy or maybe a little slower than he should be. Whatever, he had to develop the style that maybe wasn't, he saw Martin crush, and then he had a hard time after him. And then after that, you get some of the greatest Chris Rock performances of all time. After that, you get Bring the Pain. After that, you get Bigger and Blacker. After that, you get some of the greatest Bits ever. So he saw, like we all, every time you've bombed, how many times, here it goes right here. He goes, one night in Chicago, as usual, I was the headliner, and on this night, my opening act was an up-and-coming comic named Martin Lawrence. Now normally, I never used to watch the opening acts, but I was in my dressing room and I heard a roar. I got up to see what was going on. I thought it was a fight or something, so I got up and went to the side of the stage. When I got there, I realized it wasn't a fight. It was people laughing so hard that the building was shaking. People were crying, standing, stomping their feet, screaming laughter. I was terrified. It was like watching somebody fucking your wife with a bigger dick.