Tim Heidecker Really Does Not Like Joe Rogan and Tony Hinchcliffe

I watched the new Kill Tony special on Netflix this weekend because I was curious and wanted to know what it was all about. I didn’t care for it. The most gracious reading of a Kill Tony show is that Tony Hinchcliffe and three other panelists (Matt Rife was among them here, though Shane Gillis, Joe Rogan, and Tom Segura are also regulars) watch a series of amateur and established comedians give one-minute sets and provide commentary. In theory, it’s an opportunity to give a young comic their break.

In practice, it’s mostly a blood sport. The comedians tend to be terrible — one minute isn’t much space to prove yourself — and the panelists use that as license to roast them. When a bigger name like Jeff Ross or Joey DeRosa shows up, Hinchcliffe flips from heckler to hype man. Yes, the stage is technically “inclusive” — they’ll feature performers in wheelchairs or with other disabilities, and every once in a while, a woman — but that inclusivity mostly provides easier targets for the panel’s cruelty. Having now watched parts of two Kill Tony specials, it reminded me less of a comedy showcase and more of ’80s-era Howard Stern, which often leaned crueler than funny. Baba booey.

I’m not here to judge. But Tim Heidecker is. Heidecker, of Tim & Eric fame, appeared on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast for the third and final time (Maron is retiring his podcast this year), and the two went long on what might be called the Brogansphere. Maron mostly reiterated what he’s been saying about the Austin scene for years (“Matt Rife is the new It Boy of Sh*tty Comedy”), so it was refreshing to hear another perspective.

Heidecker is not a fan either. “Those guys are sucking up so much oxygen. It’s the same audience that is watching Rogan, and everyone is getting validated by this cretinous, backwards 20th century thinking about the world we’re living in.”

Heidecker spoke specifically about Rogan’s podcast, pointing out not just the politics but the monotony: “How boring it is. How much they go in circles. It was the tone of, like, the college rec center at 3 in the morning. And I don’t want to go back and have those conversations again … these guys talk in loops and they never go anywhere, and you never walk away at the end of one of those shows with any answers, and I’ve never even finished one.”

Maron also took aim at Hinchcliffe directly: “The essence of the show is that it’s a guy who is not a good comic who has hungry, amateur comics out there to sh*t on them.”

“Yeah, that’s very cruel,” Heidecker replied. “It’s very hard to watch. We did a parody of that, too, but it’s too gross to even make fun of.”

“Well, [Hinchcliffe] plays it like he’s the heel. And that there’s a spectacle element to it. But to me,” Maron said, “it’s like, there is a craft to stand-up. Comedy is a place where you can challenge things, as opposed to just creating garbage to titillate f**king fury and intolerance.”

“You’ve got to think that people are getting a little tired of the endless conversation that isn’t going anywhere,” Heidecker added.

Maron and Heidecker’s frustration isn’t just with bad comics or lazy formats, but with a cultural moment that mistakes bullying and banter for insight. Kill Tony may thrive on ridicule, but it’s worth asking — politics aside — whether there’s still an appetite for comedy that leaves you with nothing but the aftertaste of someone else’s humiliation. Even Howard Stern evolved.