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Joe Rogan · 2024-06-05 · 2h 44m

Joe Rogan Experience #2161 - Tony Hinchcliffe

Tony Hinchcliffe joins Joe Rogan for a wide-ranging, profane riff on Austin comedy, COVID distrust, Mexican politics, lobotomies, and TV's golden age.

Joe Rogan Experience #2161 - Tony Hinchcliffe
The guest

Tony Hinchcliffe — Stand-up comedian and host of the Kill Tony podcast, recently relocated to Austin and riding a wave of fame after the Tom Brady roast.

The gist

Joe Rogan and Tony Hinchcliffe open by celebrating Austin's emergence as a comedy capital, with comics like Shane Gillis, Joey Diaz, and Theo Von converging on the city. The conversation roams across heavy distrust of institutions, including Mexico's deadly election with 37 assassinated candidates, Anthony Fauci's congressional hearings, COVID vaccine excess-death reports, and media propaganda. They detour into morbid curiosities like the funeral industry, necrophilia, and the history of lobotomies, plus brain-damage anecdotes. The back half turns lighter, covering Kill Tony stories, the OZmpic trend, a remote Amazon tribe getting internet, Soft White Underbelly's inbred Whitaker family, and an extended love letter to The Sopranos and prestige TV. Throughout, the two trade roast stories and reflect on comedy, money, and power running everything.

Big reveals

  • Mexico elected Claudia Sheinbaum as its first female president after a campaign in which 37 candidates were assassinated.
  • Fauci claimed he made zero dollars personally while $710 million was reportedly earned, though his net worth rose to about $11 million.
  • Researchers analyzed data from 47 Western countries and found over 3 million excess deaths since 2020.
  • Rolling Stone reported Trump told allies he wants to covertly send Special Forces to Mexico to assassinate cartel leaders.
  • Tony claims JFK turned against mental health institutions after his sister Rosemary's botched lobotomy.
  • In Texas it is illegal to give away fentanyl test strips, and a bill to decriminalize them died in the Senate.
  • A remote Brazilian Amazon tribe got Starlink internet and became divided, with elders saying young people got 'lazy' and hooked on porn.

Things worth remembering

  • Joey Diaz told Tony the funeral home industry is a scam, forcing embalming and coffin upsells even for cremations.
  • The pair recall Sam Kinison's classic bit about necrophiliacs paying morticians for time with corpses.
  • Andy Kaufman bused tables at Jerry's Deli at the height of his Taxi fame, staying in character as a humble busboy.
  • They discuss a 44-year-old French man living a normal life with an IQ of 84 despite missing roughly 90% of his brain (hydrocephalus).
  • Tony cites a study suggesting playing 3D video games increases gray matter in the brain.
  • The Tom Brady roast was the most-watched thing ever on Netflix.
  • Netflix has about 269 million subscribers worldwide.
  • No Country for Old Men had to stop shooting one day because black smoke from the nearby There Will Be Blood shoot ruined the background.
  • Tony and Joe claim Reagan-era policy changes deinstitutionalized many mentally ill people, putting them on the streets.

Recommended in this episode

Books, products and media the guest or host genuinely endorsed here — with the buy link.

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RecommendedMedia

There Will Be Blood

Paul Thomas Anderson (inferred)

“I was rewatching There Will Be Blood recently those Church scenes I mean unbelievable that movie is insane oh it's so good” — Tony Hinchcliffe 01:47:14
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedMedia

The Jinx

Andrew Jarecki (inferred)

“I blasted through the new season of the Jinx which is unbelievable on HBO one of my favorite murder documentaries ever” — Tony Hinchcliffe 01:50:20
Find it on Amazon
RecommendedMedia

The Sopranos

David Chase (inferred)

“re-watching The Sopranos for the 5,000th time and it's every time better than the last it's unbelievable” — Tony Hinchcliffe 01:50:20
Find it on Amazon