‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Fans Catch the World’s Worst Comedy Podcaster Stealing the Show’s Jokes

If Brendan Schaub could write a joke as funny as any of those on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, maybe he’d finally headline at Joe Rogan’s club.

Rogan, the undisputed king of all podcasting and the self-professed defender of comedy integrity, has made many controversial moves in his position as the nucleus of the Manosphere, but for all the divisive figures ever booked on The Joe Rogan Experience, only one perennial guest has ever equally upset both sides of the culture wars — Brendan Schaub. 

The former MMA fighter and current comedy attempter was able to carve a corner for himself in the dudebro podcasting racket in the early 2010s due to his close relationship with Rogan, and though the relationship between the two has been rumored to be rocky in recent years, Rogan gifting Schaub the opportunity to cut to the front of the line in the stand-up industry ruffled many fans’ feathers as they found Schaub’s persona on shows like The Fighter and the Kid to be grating, unintelligent and unfunny.

On top of that, he’s also unoriginal — one podcasting fan in the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia subreddit recently unearthed an old clip of Schaub on JRE joking about wrestling legend Hulk Hogan and his “hot dog skin” to the delight of his host. Schaub better count his blessings that Rogan doesn’t watch Always Sunny, otherwise he’d have taken away the heavyweight title of “Least Funny Comedian Whose Career Was Derailed After Joe Rogan Accused Him of Plagiarism” from Carlos Mencia.

The video, titled “Failed Comedian Brendan Schaub Takes Credit for a Line That Sounds Pretty Familiar,” shows Schaub saying that a bodybuilder has “Hulk Hogan hot dog skin,” a description that blows Rogan’s mind and inspires the most praise he ever showed for Schaub’s comedy writing skills.

“Dude, 'hot dog skin' is the best expression ever, when did you come up with that?” Rogan asked his guest.

“I don’t know, a while ago,” Schaub replied. “That’s how I describe Hulk Hogan.”

“Congratulations,” Rogan told his friend of Schaub’s first funny joke, saying of the “hot dog skin” quip, “There’s few descriptions in my life that have really sunk home (like that).”

Of course, as any Always Sunny fan will tell you, Dee Reynolds, a somehow more talented comedian than Schaub, was actually the person who came up with the description of Hogan’s skin in the 2009 episode “The Gang Wrestles for the Troops.” Schaub could have easily admitted that the joke was an Always Sunny reference, but he instead successfully stole credit for the line in front of comedy’s single most outspoken critic of joke theft.

Though Rogan failed to sniff out Schaub’s plagiarism and didn’t attack his friend the way he targeted Mencia back in 2005, Rogan certainly doesn’t have confidence in Schaub’s ability to write his own material — many Rogan fans have noted that, though Schaub’s entrance into the comedy would have been impossible without his connection to Rogan, the proprietor of The Mothership in Austin, Texas has never once booked his podcasting protege to perform at his club. In fact, rumors of a behind-the-scenes “beef” between the two over Schaub’s lack of stage time at The Mothership swirled before fizzling out with Schaub’s latest appearance on JRE this past April.

Maybe Schaub served him a dinner of squash and beef and pretended he came up with that joke, too.