The career of comedian Tyler Fischer reminds us of an old Billy Joel song. “They sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, ‘man, what are you doin’ here?’” Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” is clearly talented. It’s only a matter of time before he makes it big. Today? If Billy Joel had written the song for our time, the Piano Man would spend his entire career playing the cocktail lounge. He’d never get his big break because he’s the wrong skin color.
“Sorry, Billy. You’re super-awesome, but we aren’t looking for white people.”
Tyler Fischer heard this very thing from a Hollywood talent agency. After diversity hiring practices began, Tyler was suddenly the wrong color, they told him. It isn’t a conspiracy theory. He has a recorded conversation. Tyler has the receipts.
After diversity hiring practices began, Tyler was suddenly the wrong color, they told him.
Isn’t reverse discrimination a myth? Everyone who finds Tyler Fischer funny knows, it’s not. It’s safe to say a large portion of Tyler’s fan base is made up of canceled people, the writer of this article included. We find ourselves locked out of a system that once hired on merit. We’ve been told, either directly or indirectly, “Your time is over. Let someone else have a turn.”
We think, “Our time is over? We never even got started.”
Like Billy Joel’s underdog musician, Tyler Fischer was born to perform. What does it mean to be a natural at something? In Tyler’s case, he doesn’t just tell jokes. His thought process is a subconscious testing ground for comedy. It would explain the volume of humor that emanates from Tyler’s brain. He could be dryly riffing on his podcast or doing stand-up comedy in a club. Tyler comes across as a friend who makes you laugh.
Like Billy Joel’s underdog musician, Tyler Fischer was born to perform.
He works hard at it, he won’t lie. On his podcast, Tyler shares the ins and outs of being an unsigned comedian. He’s 35 years old, unmarried, and often broke. He’s filled with neuroses that have him seeing a therapist and looking for breakthroughs. We hear these problems and sympathize, if disbelievingly. “BUT… you’re funny!” We think it should solve most of those problems.
It hasn’t. Which makes him one of us. In fact, we’re signed to as many TV comedy shows as Tyler Fischer. We’ve been on Saturday Night Live for as many seasons as he has. We even have the same access to a Hollywood agent as Tyler, as in, none.
While Tyler pushes for his big break, he works the YouTube algorithm by posting videos of his comedy. He shares snippets of his comedy club routines. He also records laid-back installments of “The Tyler Fischer Podcast.” In one episode, he sits on the grass at a Montauk, Long Island inn. He tells us his impromptu podcast session draws curious looks. He tries to keep his voice down. From the stuff he says, he knows he could be attacked.
Tyler’s comedy doesn’t land with liberal New York. His brand of merriment is edgy for the lefties. Tyler is from Brooklyn himself and, as he tells it, traditionally liberal. It was Tyler’s struggle to get signed that opened his eyes to liberal politics. Now, he skewers the Left’s hypocrisy.
Anyone old enough to remember comedy in the pre-Woke days knows Tyler is a welcome throwback. He comes across as young and modern, while at heart, he’s an old-fashioned comic who goes after untouchable subjects. Who might be untouchable? The Woke Left, naturally. While his fellow comedians censor themselves to stay acceptable to Hollywood, Tyler gleefully swings an axe at the machine.
His material is full of sharp satire over the faux-religiosity of the Left.
His material is full of sharp satire over the faux-religiosity of the Left. He makes fun of left-wing obsessions such as vaccine mandates and mask usage, the belief in the transcendence of transgenderism, attacks on everyday masculinity, the lunacy of fake news propaganda, and the white-bread jihad against American culture. It’s where Tyler’s skin color is an asset. He effectively mimics left-wing Caucasians who are “down with the cause.” His long hair and full lumberjack beard help to sell it.
You might have noticed Tyler Fischer sets a high bar for himself. Isn’t it tough enough for an unknown comic to find representation? To attack the left-wing entertainment industry full-on? And yet, Tyler adds a degree of difficulty. He doesn’t just tell jokes. Tyler’s main form of comedy is impressions.
Tyler’s main form of comedy is impressions.
You’re doing comedy the hard way with an impression. You need to pull off a plausible monologue in someone else’s voice. It’s like driving a car on a dark road and reading a map at the same time. If you can multitask, you might have a shot. An impression is a performance you realize works because you’re not cringing. We don’t even think about it. An internal divining rod that susses out how people act, eloquently called a bullshit detector, either accepts or rejects someone trying to imitate someone else.
The BS detector doesn’t alarm when Tyler Fischer does an impression. You can tell he’s done his homework. His voice becomes the voice of his target. Part of it, you notice, is the way he sells the vocal mannerisms and tics. You ever notice the little sniffs that Trump does between sentences? Tyler has them.
Some of Tyler’s impressions have fun with the left. He does a withering Dr. Fauci, with wandering statements full of conditions and hypotheticals.
“Ballpark, in two to five to 20 years, we can start thinking about considering the idea of pondering the thought of conceptualizing the possibility of maybe, perhaps, reopening, but, probably not.”
Tyler Fischer as Dr. Fauci
Then there’s Tyler’s original character, “Man Bun.” Tyler played Man Bun as a woke Karen during the vaccination hysteria. In his videos, Man Bun attacks the selfish unvaccinated. Invariably, he is cornered by facts contrary to his agenda. He quickly changes the subject to another woke cause.
Lately, Man Bun has shared his female transition story, a la Dylan Mulvaney, in a multi-part series on Girlhood.
Tyler does a great job with Trump. His sketch about Trump and soup is clever for calling out how Trump explains his own wit.
Celebrity impressions are also in the stable. Talking about Johnny Depp’s defamation case, Tyler complains how the painfully esoteric Depp can only answer questions as a 20-minute poem.
“I remember what happened that day with Ms. Heard. I woke up the morning of and there was a light dew outside. I recall an injured crow that was sitting on the stump of an oak tree. I went down to my chamber and knitted a cashmere sweater to keep it warm. As the sun dripped through the drapes onto my nose, that’s when it hit me. Ms. Heard had taken a shit in my laptop.”
Tyler Fischer as Johnny Depp
For many fans, Tyler’s sketches recall the classic days of Saturday Night Live. “This is 20x funnier than anything on SNL,” people comment on his YouTube videos. Some of us remember when SNL critiqued everyone. Tyler’s comedy is too smart for a show that only wants the correct political opinions.
Does anyone believe the “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” cared about politics? Politicians are cultural reference points. The goal is to make jokes out of them and to roast human nature.
Through the agenda-driven lens we’ve become used to, a Tyler Fischer political impression seems, well, pointless. Where’s the message? What’s the agenda? A few commenters on YouTube will post, “Am I the only one who doesn’t find this funny?”
Yes, yes, you are. Tyler does actual comedy. Welcome to it.
Because Tyler publicly abandoned the Democrat party, people assume he’s right-wing. Like so many others, he’s walked away from partisanship in search of common ground in between. Aren’t these people labeled right-wing? Of course. Tyler doesn’t seem to care. He’s even found a fanbase within the middle-right political crowd. His spot-on impressions of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are a savvy courting of a large niche audience the Left ignores.
Unspoken by his fans, possibly unnoticed, is Tyler’s comedic superpower: his writing.
Unspoken by his fans, possibly unnoticed, is Tyler’s comedic superpower: his writing. As writers ourselves, we’re continually impressed by the cleverness and thematic focus of Tyler’s sketches. His fans swear his comedy is better than a room full of writers. He clearly knows quirky comedic energy will only get you so far. The craft of a sketch and the moral truth it reveals is key.
Hopefully, by the time this article is posted, it will be outdated. Tyler Fischer will be rich, famous, and married. Only, it’s possible the struggle to “make it” brings out the best in us. Tyler continues to post timely videos about our cultural situation. He doesn’t realize it, but, by being as good as he is and still canceled, he makes all the rest of us feel talented.
Imagine how much he could’ve done for Hollywood had the system accepted him.
His ambition possibly even outclasses our own canceled selves. The discrimination thing he went through? He’s suing the talent agency. You’re not supposed to do that! You’re supposed to “take the L,” give up and move on. Tyler apparently has too much energy, too much fight. Imagine how much he could’ve done for Hollywood had the system accepted him. How much money would he have generated working for them instead of being made an enemy? At 35, Tyler bills his stand-up routine “Old Man Hustle.” He should have been signed years ago.
Through a combative brand of based, anti-woke comedy that gets more laughs than the system does, Tyler Fischer is no longer begging to be hired. He’s daring them to do it.
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