Letterman, Leno Grapple With the Concept of Podcasts on The Comedy Store

"Our thing was, you get on The Tonight Show," Tim Allen says in this clip from Sunday's finale of the Showtime docuseries The Comedy Store.

"They don't care about about The Tonight Show," director Mike Binder informs him.

"Are you saying we're irrelevant?" Allen asks. 

Podcasting has completely changed the career paths for comedians, making the television deals that used to make or break the original Comedy Store generation much less crucial to a successful career. Podcasts can still be a hard sell with the veterans, though.

"I find them informative and I like them, but it's not as good as the shared experience," Leno said. "It's like masturbating and having a real date. One is really easy and the outcome is the same, but you've just missed something."

Letterman, for his part, plays the old man about it. "I just did a podcast," he said, referencing his 2019 guest spot on WTF with Marc Maron. "I'll never be able to listen to it. I'll never be able to find it. I don't know how to get my hands on a podcast. I don't know. He says 'download it. You've got an app.' I said 'I don't. I don't have an app."

The Comedy Store airs Sunday at 10:00 PM ET on Showtime.

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Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.