Three Reasons Why the Tom Brady Roast Is the Most Important Comedy of 2024
Every year seems to have its defining comedy event. In this decade, we had Bo Burnham’s Inside in 2021, Jerrod Carmichael’s Rothanial in 2022 and John Mulaney’s Baby J in 2023.
2024 is barely past the halfway mark, but it’s clear that we’ve already experienced the comic entry that’s going to leave the biggest footprint on the year: The Roast of Tom Brady. The Netflix special likely won’t be responsible for 2024’s most clever comedy, sharpest social commentary or most transcendent performances. But there are at least three reasons why The Roast of Tom Brady is the most important comedy we’ll see all year…
The Roast Is Back, Baby
The roast was arguably the most durable form of comedy in the early part of his century, courtesy of the comic skewering of Chevy Chase, David Hasselhoff, William Shatner and other acclaimed doofuses. Then the pendulum swung for some reason — we lost our appetite for jokes that hit below the belt? Comedy Central ran the idea into the ground? The nation reached its Jeffrey Ross saturation point?
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But after a few roast-less years in the desert, we’re clearly thirsty for more burns. The Brady roast burst into the Netflix Top Ten within its first few hours of availability, chalking up millions of streams in record time and drawing more viewers than high-profile specials from Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais. It’s one of the year’s biggest streaming success stories.
Comedian Chris Redd tells me he’s happy to see the roast make a comeback. “It’s always been a part of my life so it’s never really gone anywhere,” he says. “But it’s good to see it being embraced on a mainstream platform. Everybody has been super careful about what they say and they still should be mindful of those things, but getting back to having fun, making fun of people in very fun ways, that’s all a part of comedy.”
Out of Red-Hot Roasting Flames, New Stars Are Born
Twenty years ago, Comedy Central roasts routinely made stars out of relative unknowns like Sarah Silverman, Anthony Jeselnik and Amy Schumer. Sure, they might have been up-and-coming in comedy clubs but scoring big at a roast can catapult a comic into the national consciousness.
For further evidence, look no further than Nikki Glaser. She was far from an unknown — she had an HBO special this spring — but her killer performance at the Brady roast strapped her on a rocket to a whole new level of fame. Glaser knew what was at stake, too. “You have this really short amount of time where you have to be excellent, and there is no room for error because it’s live. And just the amount of eyes on you, the amount of detail there was involved in each joke. It felt like a balance beam routine, honestly,” she told Variety. “As soon as I stuck the landing and finished it and walked back to my seat, then I just felt like it was a dream.”
The Comedy Conversation Never Stopped
A great Nate Bargatze special might inspire a little “Hey, you ought to catch this guy’s act” talk around the water cooler. But that’s nothing compared to the headlines that spilled out for weeks after the Brady roast:
- “Here Are the Nikki Glaser Jokes Too Hot for TV!”
- “Jeff Ross Wasn’t Supposed to Go After Bob Kraft’s Massages!”
- “Who Started the Boos for Kim Kardashian?”
- “Ben Affleck Bombed!”
- “Gisele Is Pissed!”
- “Tom Brady Regrets the Whole Thing!”
Comedians sniped at each other over who got the most attention. Sports fans buzzed over the Bill Belichick/Robert Kraft reunion. And the roast just got nominated for an Emmy. It’s hard to imagine any other comedy this year that will inspire so much back-and-forth.
And comics like Redd are here for it. “Tom Brady committed roasting suicide,” he jokes, “so that we all could live.”
