Comedy History 101

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►Tell us about you and your podcast

On Comedy History 101, comedian/author Harmon Leon and Filmmaker Scott Calonico dive into the history of comedy; bringing podcast listeners some of their favorite comedy influences, cult classics, and all things comedy history. My background is performing comedy at comedy festivals around the world, being a contributing writer for Vice, producing videos for places such as Vanity Fair - as well as writing 7 books; the latest is called: Meet the Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America.

►Why & how did you start this podcast? 

We do another podcast called This is the President. Comedy History 101 spun off from that. I've worked most of my adult life in comedy, gigging at comedy festivals around the world - so the world of comedy is what I'm most passionate about. Yes, I love podcasts. My podcast queue ranges from history to linguistics and comedy. We started Comedy History 101 a year ago - because comedy is a topic we both are passionate and knowledgeable about. It took about two days to release the first episode of Comedy History 101 - each episode is a heavy edit because we drop in a lot of comedy audio soundbites.

►How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?

Funding? Ha! Time; we just schedule it. We started doing Comedy History 101 as a monthly podcast - now we're trying to produce a new episode each week. The editing and research for each episode is the most time consuming. Yes, we fund the podcast ourselves - but we are always looking for sponsors.

►What do you gain from podcasting?        

Yes we take sponsors. Our other podcast, This Is The President, has gotten sponsors. We were contacted by an agency that pairs podcasts with sponsors - that's how we got our first spots. Podcasting is another way to spread our brand. Besides podcasting, I perform comedy, produce videos, and write books - so it's a good synergy that we put out there by having another outlet to tell stories.

►How does your podcasting process look like? 

My co-host, Scott Calonico, lives in Scotland and I'm in New York. We each have a mic and record into Adobe Audition - while talking to each other on the phone via Skype. Once we're done recording, Scott sends me his audio and I pair the tracks together and edit it in Audition. We don't do guests. Each episode of Comedy History 101 - we do extensive research into the topic at hand and compile everything into an outline inside of a Google Doc. We also pull a lot of videos from YouTube that have to do with the episode and put it into Slack.

►How do you market your show?

The main site for Comedy History 101 is our production company's website: Wordsoverchair.com. We largely market via social media. I also plug the podcasts at my lives shows and on radio/podcast interviews I do.

►What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?

Just jump in and start doing it. You'll learn best by experience. Also listen to a lot of other podcasts; it will give you an idea of structure and other tricks they use.

►Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?

• wordsoverchair.com/comedy-history-101-home
• harmonleon.com