Comedian Ms. Pat

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

Jesse Thorn (0:21)

It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn. My next guest this week is the stand-up comic Miss Pat. Pat had an extraordinarily difficult path to success. She was a victim of child sexual abuse. She was a mother at 14 She was incarcerated. To go from those kinds of circumstances to where she is today, a national headliner with TV and movie credits. I mean, I cannot imagine doing it, could you?

But to talk to Miss Pat, just in terms of her life story, it sells her comedy short. She was a genuinely brilliant stand up, direct and clever and raw. She'll talk about getting bored when her granddaughter talks, chase it with a story about surviving a gunshot, and then finish with a brutal clip about menopause. I'm going to play you a little bit, but this is NPR, and I will have to say that Miss Pat's stand up is very, very direct and raw.

She also has her own show. When we talked in 2024, the Miss Pat show had just kicked off its fourth season on BET. These days, you can catch all five seasons of the Emmy-nominated program on Paramount Plus.

On the Miss Pat show, she plays a fictionalized version of herself. Her character is a stand up comic like Pat. She's also a mother of four like Pat. Her family has moved from their hometown, Atlanta, to a conservative small town in Indiana. In this clip, Pat is heading back to Indiana after a long tour, and she makes some small talk with the person sitting next to her.

SPEAKER_1 (1:51)

Headed home?

Ms. Pat (1:52)

Yep. Back to Plainfield, Indiana. Oh.

SPEAKER_1 (1:56)

That's a nice city.

Ms. Pat (1:57)

Well, I just moved there. I'm still getting used to it. But if you like white people, ticket torches and dope, it's a nice city.

Jesse Thorn (2:04)

I'm looking forward to getting home. I miss my children like crazy.

They dead?

SPEAKER_1 (2:09)

I just miss them. Don't you miss yours?

Ms. Pat (2:12)

Child, I don't miss the babies by my husband, or them grown kids by my baby daddy.

Jesse Thorn (2:18)

Were you out here for work as well?

Ms. Pat (2:21)

I'm a comedian.

Jesse Thorn (2:22)

You?

SPEAKER_1 (2:22)

I'm a geologist.

Ms. Pat (2:23)

What?

SPEAKER_1 (2:24)

A geologist.

Ms. Pat (2:25)

I study rocks.

Wait a minute. They get white people jobs studying rocks?

Jesse Thorn (2:32)

Ms. Phat, welcome to Bullseye. I'm so happy to have you on the show.

Ms. Pat (2:34)

Thank you for having me.

Jesse Thorn (2:36)

As I was watching a few episodes of the Ms. Pat Show, I found myself wondering, are there lines that have been handed to you on Tuesday, or whenever you do the read-through for that week, where you say to yourself, this is too much?

Ms. Pat (2:54)

No.

Jesse Thorn (2:55)

Okay.

Ms. Pat (2:56)

Well, I co-created the show with Johnny Cooper, and sometime he get a little wild, and I'm like, Jordan, I don't think we should do that. So, you know, he want me to do something, and I was like, that's not me.

Give it to Tammy Roman. She's going to deliver it way better. Sometimes he do get a little crazy, but we're open field over there.

Jesse Thorn (3:17)

It really is. I mean, like, it is the rawest multicam sitcom I've ever seen in its tone. Like, you just go at everything hard.

Ms. Pat (3:28)

Yes, we pull the scab off the sore. You know, like network TV, they're just, if they're gonna talk about race, it's gonna be a little bit, because they don't want to, you know, they don't want anybody to think or cry or get upset with us. We're gonna make you go deep. We're gonna make you pull those demons out your closet. We're gonna make you deal with things that you've been trying not to deal with. So, you know, every season is something crazy with The Miss Pat Show.

Jesse Thorn (3:54)

Okay, this is the, this show, the show that ended up on the air on BET+, was your sort of third time through developing the show.

So what was it that you got to by the end? Well, first of all, congratulations on keeping the ball rolling that whole time.

Ms. Pat (4:12)

Yes.

Jesse Thorn (4:13)

But what was it that you got to at the end that you weren't able to get to the first two times?

Ms. Pat (4:18)

Hollywood. I'm not Hollywood. So, you know, a lot of people just want to do stuff because they want to be on TV or they want the money.