roasts turned – From The Larry Sanders Show to Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart, the tradition has shifted from a celebratory, closed-door sendoff into a staged event built for attention. The jokes may be dressed up as admiration, but the structure increasingly rewards sanct
The night isn’t ruined by the jokes alone. It’s ruined by how they’re delivered—by who gets picked, who holds the mic, and how fast the air turns performative.
In 1997. Garry Shandling’s meta-sitcom The Larry Sanders Show aired an episode about the behind-the-scenes preparations for a roast of the eponymous fictional late-night host. The event is supposed to celebrate Larry. It turns into a disaster. Jerry Seinfeld drops out at the last minute. Bill Maher mainly performs jokes from his own act. Dana Carvey and Bruno Kirby use the stage to bicker with each other.
While the show churns toward its “tribute. ” Larry quietly stews over the barbs that land on his vanity and his perceived homosexuality. The episode frames the cruelty as coming from people he doesn’t respect—people who appeared only because they were cajoled or pressured. Late in the episode. Larry eventually remarks. “This is the worst fucking night of my life.” Not long before the end. the prop comic Carrot Top takes the stage as the evening’s surprise guest and skews Larry.
Larry’s publicist insists the roast is a Hollywood rite of passage. But watching the episode. the point lands less on the punchlines and more on the transformation: the industry has sapped the tradition’s romance. turning a noisy tribute into something closer to a networking event—another venue to cultivate notoriety.
That’s the thread the modern roasts pick up, and it’s the one that follows, uncomfortably, into Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart. Multiple comedians and celebrities gather to poke fun at Hart. The setup looks like celebration. The mood reads like humiliation posing as a party.
At Hart’s roast, no insult was off the table. The jokes include height jokes, one-liners about Hart’s phoned-in movies, and jabs at Hart’s father’s crack addiction. The segment references Hart’s frequent co-star the Rock. and at times those references double as references to Hart’s father’s crack addiction. There are also smirking nods to Hart’s product endorsements, alongside more height jokes.
Unlike Larry. Hart appears to take the canned insults in stride. hamming up feigned outrage and offering what’s described as ostensibly genuine laughter for nearly three hours. But the atmosphere still feels artificially joyous. By the end. the roast doesn’t land as comedic expression—it comes off as sanctioned cruelty presented in the name of admiration.
The story doesn’t start with Netflix, though. The earliest roasts were closed-door toasts to theatrical luminaries such as Oscar Hammerstein by members of the private New York Friars Club in the early 1900s. In 1968—nearly 20 years after the Friars Club started hosting annual member roasts—one was televised on Kraft Music Hall. an umbrella title for several musical variety series that aired on NBC.
In 1973, Dean Martin borrowed the format for the final season of his self-titled variety show to boost flagging ratings. The attempt became a huge success. That success helped spawn a decade of specials branded as The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts. featuring mid-century A- and B-listers—many of whom were good friends or had worked together for years—cracking wise about roastees such as Frank Sinatra and Mr. T.
Then the format left the club atmosphere and entered television as a product. In 1998, Comedy Central began producing and televising the traditional Friars Club roasts. A few years later. the network launched its own line of specials. inspired by the Friars Club and Dean Martin ceremonies but courting controversy with a raunchy one-upmanship sensibility. Even with a veneer of good-natured joshing. a coarser approach took over under “Roastmaster General” Jeff Ross. a frequent writer of and participant at those roasts.
Carvey and Spade’s podcast Fly on the Wall points to a specific moment for the tonal shift. On a recent episode of the podcast. both veteran comics pointed to the 2002 Chevy Chase roast as the turning point “from fun to foul.” Dana Carvey said. “I could tell there was pain in his eyes. ” adding. “I thought. Is this like an execution or something?” (In that same episode. Carvey announced that he has agreed to be roasted at a future date.).
The tradition returned in a new. bigger form in 2024 with The Roast of Tom Brady. Netflix’s first-ever live roast special. featuring Brady. the former Patriots quarterback. The roast was viewed more than 2 million times on its debut night. It included Brady taking cracks about his divorce and the New England Patriots’ cheating scandals on the chin.
Brady’s good-sport facade faltered once. after Ross made a crack about the prostitution scandal involving the Patriots’ owner. Robert Kraft. Brady went over to Ross and appeared to admonish him. The special was also described as a relative commercial success partly because of its choice of victim: Brady was a pro-athlete sacred cow beloved by fans and hated by rivals. a prime target for teammates and comedians alike who “all relished taking him down a peg.”.
In Hart’s roast, the bridge between “admiration” and “performance” shows early. Brady himself—asked about by his presence in that format’s broader ecosystem—isn’t the one stepping onstage in the Hart special. but the structure is familiar: sanctioned mockery as entertainment. Early in the Hart special. Brady appears onstage to snark: “I guess it wouldn’t be a Kevin Hart project if it wasn’t a shitty sequel.”.
The routine itself is described as bloated and repetitive. with every roaster doubling down on variations of the same obvious observations. The script expands the targets beyond Hart. Lizzo is fat. Pete Davidson has a dad who died on 9/11. Sheryl Underwood is Black and had a husband who killed himself. Political allegiances and dubious sexual histories are deployed in ways described as rigid and clumsy.
The roast material follows predictable boundaries. Any “shocking” jokes are carefully choreographed to inspire gasps from the crowd while flattering the unflappability of the roastee. Even a line that might seem more extreme can end up fitting the range of what’s acceptable; the example given is that Hart may not have known Shane Gillis. the night’s host. would say that he could be lynched only from a Bonsai tree. Despite racist overtones, the statement is ultimately treated as “just a height joke” within the same comedic system.
This is also where brand power becomes part of the staging. Early in the Hart special, Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO, can be seen grinning in the audience. His presence is described as a symbol of brand support for Hart. who has been in the streamer’s fold for years and most recently hosted the Netflix comedy-competition series Funny AF.
Katt Williams, a longtime critic of Hart’s, delivers a pointed joke of his own: “I did say that Kevin was a Hollywood puppet,” Williams remarked onstage. “I meant that the head of Netflix literally has his whole hand up Kevin’s ass and can make him do anything.”
That line lands like a confession buried inside the routine—because Netflix. through its programming and its presence. is everywhere in the room. The article notes that Netflix has produced four of Williams’s stand-up specials since 2018. and that many of the other guests also regularly feature on the streamer’s programming. With Sarandos in the audience and a grin-and-bear-it vibe from participants. the night starts to feel less like a comedy show and more like a branding event.
The performance grows phony when the comics treat slurs or racist and misogynistic jokes as if doing so is bravery. Freedom of speech is alive today,” Underwood announces during her routine. She then publicly thanks Netflix and Hart for showing “that we can all come together and crack jokes on each other and still respect each other.”.
Respect, in that framing, looks less like a shared bond and more like proximity to the attention machine. The article ties it directly to the trade-offs of the stage: any respect for Hart exhibited by the performers is partly downwind from the money and attention they receive by appearing onstage.
Hart, it says, knows there’s profit in performing a loud, rude style of stand-up at the expense of craft or taste. Underwood’s order—calling him a “great businessman and a great performer,” with “businessman” first—makes the priorities feel audible.
Still, roasts haven’t always behaved this way. One of the most memorable moments in the tradition’s history. described here as subverting these faux-cruel expectations. comes from Bob Saget’s roast in 2008. Norm Macdonald was instructed by the show’s producer to be as shocking as possible. Instead, he delivers antiquated material modified from a book of corny one-liners.
Macdonald later says. “I don’t know how to insult people and call them names and stuff. ” adding. “Because I would feel really bad. because everything you say. it has to be true. you know. or it doesn’t make any sense.” The piece argues that nasty words tend to blend together. but unique points of view stand the test of time.
roast tradition The Roast of Kevin Hart The Larry Sanders Show Garry Shandling Jerry Seinfeld Bill Maher Dana Carvey Bruno Kirby Netflix Ted Sarandos Jeff Ross comedy central roasts Tom Brady roast Shane Gillis Katt Williams Sheryl Underwood