Rolling Stone
The 10 Funniest People, Videos and Things of the Coming Year

Acid-tongued, rage-prone satirist Marc Maron has been a stand-up-circuit fixture since the Eighties, hosting Comedy Central shows and befriending guys like Judd Apatow and Conan O’Brien along the way. But his new podcast, “WTF,” may be his greatest achievement yet: a series of unvarnished shit-shoots with comedians that move from laugh-geek joke anatomy to quasi-therapeutic venting (Louis C.K. wept during his epic two-part interview). “The podcast began in desperation,” Maron says.

“I was broke, in the middle of a divorce, and I decided I needed to talk to my peers.” Maron’s guests range from comedians’ comedians like Todd Barry to hip young acts like Aziz Ansari to megastars like Ben Stiller. The podcast has been good for his career — fans in the industry have approached him about developing other projects — but Maron says that’s just a happy byproduct. “I’m doing exactly what I want to do,” he says. “That’s rare.”