PODCASTER: Marc Maron (
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Comedian Marc Maron may be on the verge of a whole new panic attack.
With “Maron” premiering tonight on IFC, Maron puts a face on his neuroses.
The show is a roughly autobiographical, scripted series about an LA comic pushing 50 who starts a podcast and deals very openly with, well, everything.
“Maron” concentrates on Marc’s irrepressible and impossible focus on his myriad personal issues while he tries to figure out his life. The tone of the show is established immediately with a head-on shot of Marc going on and on to someone who you assume to be his shrink.
“I’ve been on Conan O’Brien like 47 times. And you don’t know who I am, right?” he asks.
Turns out, he’s talking to his vet.
In real life, Maron started his incredibly popular podcast “WTF” in 2009 from the confines of his garage, surrounded by his cats.
Since then he’s hosted about 400 episodes featuring nearly every comedian you know (and many you probably don’t), as well as musicians and other artists.
Maron’s willingness to be honest and forthright about his issues — including food, drugs and relationships — gives “Maron” a voice nearly identical to that of the Marc Maron people have come to know through his podcast.
He’s frank about his relationships with other comics as well.
On the air, he’s hashed out old riffs with Louis C.K. and Michael Ian Black.
Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” won’t come on “WTF” because, as Maron put it, “I was a d – – k to him, a lot, when we were younger. He remembers that and doesn’t like me.
“I get it.”
In the first few episodes of the series, Maron has to force himself to deal with a rancid dead possum under his house and absorb insults from a random Internet troll.
“Twitter. Who are these people? Don’t they have lives?” he mutters.
This from a guy who recently tweeted, “I went the whole day without being an a – – hole once.”
While “WTF” has been about getting to know the people he interviews rather than garnering laughs, Maron is good at picking out his own flaws on “Maron.”
On the show, he comes off as a head case when dealing with so-called normal people, but totally reasonable when dealing with other loons.
Judd Hirsch plays Marc’s dad, a doctor with a manic past who was stripped of his medical license and attempts to reconnect with Marc by peddling a black- market vitamin.
He sits in a motor home outside Marc’s house and honks incessantly, forcing his son to deal with him.
It’s comedy to be sure, yet the show has a distinct air of anxiety mixed with melancholy.
This translates from his experience on “WTF,” where Maron starts nearly every show by talking out his own fears and obsessions.
In a recent episode featuring Jon Favreau, Maron confided prior to the interview, “There’s a lot of things grown-ups do and seem to be able to manage that I find incredibly overwhelming.
“Thinking about buying a new home and thinking about bringing another life into the world causes me tremendous panic.
“But I need one for the other, you understand?”
Maron “undestands” more than you think. “Maron” is therapy.