If you’re not familiar with New York–based comedian Brett Davis, allow the below clips to serve as your official introduction. Davis, who hosts The Podcast for Laundry as well as the public-access show The Special Without Brett Davis, has built an arsenal of recurring characters and impersonations over the years, but none are quite as hard-hitting as his take on Chris Hardwick, who made headlines last year when he was accused of sexual and emotional abuse. Hardwick was later cleared by an investigation at AMC and returned to his various TV and podcast gigs, though the investigation itself came under scrutiny because the law firm AMC hired had previously represented the Hearst corporation, raising conflict-of-interest questions, considering Hardwick is married to a member of the Hearst family.
Hardwick has been a highly controversial figure in the comedy world over the past year, and #MeToo is a risky topic for male comedians to mine for laughs, but that hasn’t stopped Davis from delivering some merciless Hardwick humor on The Special. If you’re not caught up, here’s a clip from a 2016 Special episode, in which Davis’s Hardwick “loses his fucking mindâ€:
Davis returned as Hardwick earlier this month in a Special episode formatted like Hardwick’s old MTV hosting gig on Singled Out, and this time around, he was forced to address the allegations. “You can take away my podcast for a week while we work on rebranding it, but you can never take away my freedom!†he says at the top of the episode. “The more I thought about it, I thought, You know, there’s so many worse guys out there than me. Like, why pick on me, Chris Hardwick? I’m a nerd! I like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, video games. I’m not some macho dude, you know? I’m like a more grating Ryan Seacrest, like a less charismatic Andy Cohen. I thought, Why me?†You can catch the full episode here, but here’s a taste:
Hey, we warned you that it was brutal.