Listener supported, WNYC Studios.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Now, a comedy roast is a pretty strange ritual. A celebrated person submits to public

humiliation voluntarily. Old wounds are poked out, foibles are mocked, scandals re-aired,

usually with great obscenity.

The celebrity just sits there showing what a fantastic sport they are, but the discomfort is obvious.

The roaster can't pull a punch if the thing is going to work.

Over the past few years, Nikki Glazer has breathed some new life into this old ritual.

In fact, she really owns the roast form these days. I probably needn't tell you about Glazer's roast of the quarterback Tom Brady.

It's a phenomenon, and if you haven't seen it, it awaits you happily on Netflix.

Nikki Glazer has been on a hot streak ever since,

hosting the Golden Globes earlier this year,

and touring the country with a new show.

So I knew your work just a little bit.

Here and there, you'd be on this show and that show.

And one night, I just, I was, I was fried.

And so I went on Netflix looking for something to watch, and there's this Tom Brady

roast.

And I thought, you know, this seems particularly mindless.

Let's do this.

Exactly.

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