Marc Maron wrapped his “WTF” podcast in October after 16 years — and so far, he says, he doesn’t really miss it.
“I don’t find myself freaking out as much,” he tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast. “I mean, it was a big haul. We did a lot of episodes. We did two new episodes a week. I was banking interviews. It was all consuming, and anytime you stop something that’s all consuming, any kind of relationship after 16 years, there’s a freedom there. I thought there would be more of a panic or more of a feeling of sadness, but that didn’t really happen.”
And although he’s shown up as a guest a few times since then on other podcasts — like this one! — Maron says he’s resisted pitches to get back behind the mic. “There were people that wanted to set me up somewhere or do a deal with the old catalog and do new stuff,” he says. “I don’t know, I don’t see that there’s anything really special about the format anymore. And I don’t see that there’s any reason to compete in the format anymore. We did a thing and the more you keep doing it when it just becomes a job, it just kind of fades away. You’d rather not be the guy that people are going, ‘Oh, is he still doing that?'”
Maron stopped by the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast to talk about his most recent HBO special, “Marc Maron: Panicked,” including how his famed cats are doing. He also reminisced about his first time in Variety — specifically, the 1995 Comedy Central talk show pilot that earned his first mention in our pages. And he took the 10 Questions survey.
