Marc Maron, Internet Skeptic
Future Godfather of Podcasting Has Initial Reservations
Often, at bedtime, I like to zone out to the voices on Dr. Katz. If you’ve never seen this little animated gem, the premise is that the titular character is a licensed psychiatrist in a city not unlike New York. Or Boston. Or Los Angeles. (It really depends on the episode — the town is never named.)
What makes Dr. Katz’s practice unique is that he seems to exclusively treat comedians. Two or three real-world comedians guest in each episode, and their sessions amount to them running their stage routines with the doctor playing a gently provocative straight man.
As the show came out in the mid-to-late 90s, it’s a bit of a cultural throwback to see which performers are invited. (One thrill is the appearance of Wanda Sykes — crazy funny, IMHO. A frequent guest I’d never heard of is Dom Irrera, who I later found out also told one of his own jokes as the limo driver in The Big Lebowski.)
This 60 second clip is a particularly fun one. Marc Maron, famous comic who remade his career by starting a podcast in 2009. Ahead of the curve on podcasting popularity, you might think that Maron would have been something of an internet evangelist. Not so! In fact, in this 1996 episode he’s rather quite the cynic! Enjoy.
