Josh Johnson on His Unprecedented Comedic Output: ‘What Some People See as a Treadmill, I See as a Magic Carpet’

Josh Johnson is trying out bits on me in the back of a black Cadillac.

We’re making conversation on the way from a “Daily Show” promotional event to his set at the New York Comedy Club in Midtown, and I can sense when small talk starts inching toward a punchline.

He asks how I like New York and then compares the Big Apple to that one childhood friend with a rough home life: “He’s the first to help you out when you’re in trouble, but then he’ll hand you a cigarette and you’re like, ‘Bro, we’re 8.’”

Johnson is best known as the newest of six hosts of “The Daily Show,” where he began as a staff writer in 2017. He’s vying for Emmy contention alongside Jon Stewart and co., and also for his music-themed HBO comedy special “Symphony,” which debuted in May.

But most notable about the 36-year-old Louisiana-born comic is his prodigious output. Johnson releases nearly an hour of polished stand-up every Tuesday on YouTube — essentially a full-length special per week. His channel has racked up more than half a billion views. For three years straight, he’s kept up a pace that bewilders the industry’s leading comics.