Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jimmy Failla: They’re Just Jokes’ On Fox Nation, Where The Cabbie-Turned-Comedian Keeps The Joke Meter Running

Fox News viewers have come to know and expect Jimmy Failla to show up for a few minutes at a time to drop some one-liners on the latest headlines, but how many of them have actually seen Failla perform stand-up as a headliner? This is their chance.

JIMMY FAILLA: THEY’RE JUST JOKES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A decade ago, Jimmy Failla was an aspiring stand-up comedian publishing a humorous memoir about his time behind the wheel as a New York City cab driver. Failla’s big break came not onstage, but on Fox News, where he first began contributing as a writer in 2016.

He eventually became head writer for Kennedy on Fox Business, which led to occasional on-air talking-head status to guest host or co-host on multiple Fox News programs. He currently hosts a radio talk show, “Fox Across America,” and on the same day his Fox Nation stand-up special premiered, Failla was live on Sean Hannity’s show to promote it and announce his promotion as permanent host for Fox News Saturday Night.

This is his second stand-up special (his debut, 2016’s State of the Nation, is available for rent on Prime Video, which Failla produced alongside Gotham Comedy Club co-owner Chris Mazzilli.

But Fox News viewers have only see Failla perform short stand-up sets (he twice did 4-6 minutes in 2021 from Nashville, once on Gutfeld! and then again for the channel’s New Year’s Eve broadcast). Some of those jokes also appear in this hour-plus performance filmed in October at The Paramount theater in Long Island.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: It’s not really fair to compare Failla to the other comedy specials on Fox Nation, because folks like Roseanne Barr (Cancel This!) and Rob Schneider (Woke Up In America) come from an older generation hoping to cash in on nostalgia for their fame, whereas Failla is still on the come-up. He is, however, much more in line with the subgenre of comedians who want us to believe comedians cannot joke about things and then proceeds to make jokes about said things.

Memorable Jokes: Failla jokes that people who push “identity politics” are frauds, citing how the people who cheered Caitlyn Jenner’s transition with magazine covers and awards until Caitlyn came out as a Republican. Failla says he’s a fan of Caitlyn not just for her politics but also for her sense of humor when appearing on his radio show (although he also deadnames her in his act multiple times), and later riffs on his radio interactions with both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.

His “just jokes” also include having a “soft spot for Tim Scott” because of how black passengers give directions in his taxi, imagining “if Serena Williams were to become a woman,” noting that when he and everyone else used the r-word in the 1980s, it wasn’t and wouldn’t be to refer to people with Down syndrome, but if you say you want to defund the police? “You’re a retard.” He also jokes that if you named your kid Grayson today, back then he’d just be referred to as “Faggot.” Filming this a week after the Hamas attacks in Israel, Failla notes the rise in anti-semitism and offers to blunt it by renaming the Jacksonville Jaguars as the Jacksonville Jews, except he then jokes they’d try to keep the coin after the coin toss.

Not all of his jokes are purposely offensive.

Failla also says: “If you live in this country, you have American privilege,” such that you’d be embarrassed telling a foreigner what we argue about here. He notes that corporations adopt social justice campaigns purely to make us feel better about giving them our money, that Native Americans have much bigger worries than sports mascots that don’t get our attention, that politicians in both parties need term limits to get rid of the more senile elderly members (“if you wouldn’t trust them to drive your kids safely, they shouldn’t be allowed to steer your country,” he quips, adding “any party!”), and he has a whole chunk of material addressing how he’s no longer viewing sex or life the same at 45 as he did when he was 25.

Our Take: After several years in the Fox News universe, Failla does maintain a healthy bit of self-awareness. One of the more obvious jokes from the special is in the trailer, where he asks: “Do you know how hard it is to fit in at a cable news channel as a cab driver who dresses like an overweight figure skater?”

He expands upon that by noting the difference between seeing Failla onstage as a comedian versus seeing him on Fox News. “Tonight you are seeing me in my natural habitat,” he says. “I’m like a feral cat, OK, and Fox kind of domesticated me. They taught me how to live inside without clawing the shit out of people, peeing on the furniture. OK, stand-up comedy is my chance to get out of the house and kill a few f—ing birds, you understand?”

And he makes a point repeatedly to remind viewers that his natural state is to want to say thnige he cannot say on Fox News: “If I said these things on a live news show, OK, like they would shoot me on the air, and they’d have every right to.” Onstage as a comedian, though, he feels the social contract allows him to say just about anything. When the cameras aren’t rolling, he’s absolutely correct. And since he’s filming this for Fox Nation, he shouldn’t have to worry.

Failla also acknowledges that because of his radio show, “a lot of this stuff sticks with me,” he says about his political opinions. Which makes sense, while also undercutting his assertion earlier in the performance that “I don’t even do a lot of politics in my act.” At least half of the material here is overtly political, and sometimes way past its sell-by date, too. A joke at Elizabeth Warren’s expense may be clever, but last felt relevant seven years ago. His closing bit is even older, hitting at Bill Clinton with a 1998 reference?

Of course, talking to Long Islanders and not having a single reference to George Santos is a choice, too. But it’s his choice to make.

Our Call: Failla notes at one point that social media rewards the people who scream the loudest, even though he thinks those people are idiots. It doesn’t take a comedic genius to realize how to take advantage of that same system as a comedian. Failla deserves a lot of credit for making the most of his opportunities at Fox News. As for whether or not you should watch it, well, if you’re already on Fox Nation, then you’re pre-disposed to STREAM IT, and this might be your best bet out of all of the things the platform labels as comedy.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.