Comics Talking Comedy: She’s Jaded, and He’s Mad. Ben Gleib & Jade Catta-Preta Talk New Specials
Jade Catta-Preta is a Brazilian born comic and actress, who you know from her stand up career and from hosting E!’s “The Soup.” She’s also been a series regular on shows such as MTV’s “Girl Code,” “Punk’d,” and “Ladylike,” as well as others.
Ben Gleib is a comedic innovator who speaks his truth with an unyielding confidence, and a bold, while also silly and self-effacing humor. Gleib has been a hilarious media presence for years, from his Emmy nominated comedy game show “Idiotest” on Netflix and Game Show Network, his turn as a ghost on Disney+, his time as a roundtable regular on E!’s “Chelsea Lately,” and his new video series for The Young Turks, “Rebel HQ.”
They’re also close friends so we asked them to get togther to discuss their upcoming specials presented by Helium Comedy Studios. “Ben Gleib: The Mad King” premiered on August 14, 2022, and “Jade Catta-Preta: Jaded.” will be premiering on August 28, 2022. Both will be streaming on YouTube through Helium Comedy Studios.
Jade: A star is born, it’s an important day today
Ben: Yeah, today is some kind of special numerology day?
Jade: Yeah, Lion’s Gate 2022. You have to be putting out a lot of wishes, so it’s the perfect day for us to be talking about our upcoming specials and our shows because we’re putting it into existence today. Into the universe.
Ben: I like that! While we’re putting them into existence, let’s plug them into the universe because the universe accepts plugs
Jade: …oh they love plugs.
Ben: Your special is called “Jaded.” It comes out on August 28th on Helium Comedy Studios YouTube.
Jade: Yes. And yours is called “The Mad King!” This is your ode to George Carlin, this is all about life, your perspective, the way you see the world. You don’t do any crowd work. You do all material. You guys this is going to be an incredible special. I’ve known Ben forever, he’s one of my dearest friends, so I’m a little bit biased, but he loves comedy…and he really writes his jokes.
He just loves it. He’s been doing this for so long and this is- how many specials have you had?
This is your third or fourth?
Ben: It’s my second special, but if you count albums it’ll be my fourth album/special.
Jade: Yeah he’s been doing this for a long time. This is kind of a trophy for you too of all the stuff that you’ve done. I feel like you really care about this one because, in a way…it was kind of self produced. You wrote it all by yourself, you’ve been touring it for years, and I’m just so excited for people to see it.
Ben: Thank you and I’m a neurotic crazy person, so I’ve been heavily involved in the editing and the sound mix and all the things.
Jade: [laughing] Yeah they’re so sick of us. They’re like ‘If it’s not you, it’s Ben’ [more laughing] .
Jade: This is my first special! This is all the material I’ve been working on for literally my entire career in comedy. I just learned how to write, so this next one is gonna be great [laughs].
Ben: Hilarious. This one’s great! I’ve seen you develop it forever and you are so funny. You really are one of the most unique voices, one of the most unique personalities in comedy. Your special is just so funny, it’s so uniquely you, and it also combines music! It’s part musical! Jade: It’s part musical. I’m doing the full musical with the band a little later in September…It was cool to do something with music because I think music puts people in a different place. Like, how about this, I always say this- having an opinion is really difficult, right? Out loud? Like in a room full of –
Ben: Not for me.
Jade: Yeah but for most people who don’t perform for a living. You’re in a room with all these people, and it’s dark, and all of a sudden you go “I have an opinion!” That’s what it feels like to laugh, when you don’t know if other people are going to laugh yet. Really early on incorporating music, I’ve found, puts people in an ease. It lubes them up for a little bit of laughter.
Ben: I like that. I’m always in favor of lubing up the audience. I sometimes give out free lube at the entrance to the shows.
Jade: That’s great.
Ben: They call it hand sanitizer, but you can use it multiple ways.
Jade: [Laughing] It stings, but it does the job.
Ben: You’re damn right.
Jade: Now, you’re not only doing the special, but you’re also working on a show right now.
“Young Turks.” Tell us a little bit about that.
Ben: Yeah so, I kind of contributed to them sporadically over the years. It’s “The Young Turks,” the world’s biggest online news network. I have been anchoring their shows once a month lately and they just offered me my own video series for their Rebel HQ brand, their YouTube and Facebook brand. I do three videos a week just sharing my take on the world. Everything from politics to Karen videos, to racist cops, whatever it is. I just kind of go off. It’s been amazing. Some of the videos are about to cross a million views, combined, on both platforms. It’s just been a really great way for me to get my love of news and my anger about it out into the world.
Jade: I don’t know if you guys are Gleib fans. As you can see in the background over thereGleib 2020. This one knows politics and you need a way to get it out. I feel like your sweet spot is you’re also so good at hosting. You’ve had shows that have gone multiple seasons on TV. That’s just really your sweet spot. You know, getting to do the political stuff…
Ben: [laughing] Listen, you look fantastic and I’m red. I just changed my lighting. I don’t change my lighting for anything and I changed it and it still looks- I look like a red alcoholic and you look perfect. Skin tone smooth
Jade: Yeah I drink baby blood.
Ben: That’s what it is huh? I have to finally give in to that. Is that what fueled you for the shooting for your brand new show you’re hosting called Hotties? …Tell us about it.
Jade: …It’s on Hulu! It’s called Hotties! It’s a hybrid dating-cooking competition. Meanwhile we’re feeding them spicy stuff, so there’s spicy challenges involved in the whole thing. They have to have the best date, best dish, or both to win …For once a network just let me go loose, thank you Hulu, I love you! They let me say whatever I wanted. I was like, “this is the show for me.” I was just so proud of it. It’s really funny and it’s such a good summer binge. I really want people to see it. I feel like I’ve had so many opportunities to get myself out there and this is the thing that feels the most ‘me’ I’ve ever done. Just that in itself is really exciting.
Ben: Love it, August 16th, on Hulu. How many episodes?
Jade: 10 episodes. And all of them come out at the same time, so you can binge the whole thing.
Ben: Love that. How fun.
Ben: So, back to your special for a second. If you could describe it, what the experience of watching it will be for people-
Jade: I feel like it’s going to be a visceral experience. I pride myself on my energy and hopefully it’ll make people feel like they’re really involved in all of it. It’s literally everything I’ve ever worked on, put together into one. It was such a learning experience for me. I had never toured by myself either. I’ve opened for you, I’ve opened for a bunch of great comics, but I never really felt what it was like to have the material on my own for that long. I really did it up. I was out almost every weekend of 2021 with the material. When I got to finally do it, I was like, it’s never gonna get any better. This is the best it’ll ever be. Word-for-word everything came out of me. I delivered this little Jaded baby. I hope people like it. I’m excited, I’m nervous for people to see. I don’t really post a lot of stand-up because I’m so performance based. I want them to come and see, but now it’s out there. Hopefully some moms watch kids watching it and are like,”No!” That’s my hope.
Ben: Nice. You like making parents uncomfortable when kids get the necessary jaded truths directly from your mouth.
Jade: Right? How do you feel this special is different from all your other ones? What’s special about this one to you?
Ben: This one, like you said, it’s my ode to George Carlin because I’m just finally stepping into owning my perspective on the world and, as fearlessly as I can, sharing it. There’s a five minute chunk where I take on religion. There’s a several minute chunk where I take on people who protest people against who protest during the anthem and how stupid that is. I take on LGBTQ rights and people who protest transgender bathrooms/gender neutral bathrooms, I take on Karens, I take on racism, and just try to put these idiots in their place. I’m trying to show that there can be a comic that makes you laugh very hard, that isn’t afraid to say crazy things, but also through a progressive mindset and who can also say things that aren’t horrible. I’ve been a little annoyed at how the most popular specials these days just seem to go far at just being as extreme as you can, being an asshole, saying it’s okay to hit somebody, saying let’s marginalize the transgender community for a joke. I think you can question what’s going on and call out the changes in society without making people feel bad about themselves. So, I try to do that and also try to make assholes feel very bad about themselves. And racists and bigots feel bad about themselves.
Jade: It’s comedy, right, but it’s comedy that’s also commentary on how you personally feel. It’s also someone who’s knowledgeable on the subject matter. You’re not just saying this stuff because you thought of it one day. This is something you’ve been doing for a long time…
Ben: …In the special, to make sure people don’t get inundated with just social issues and me ranting, hopefully in a very funny way, about these things, I also painstakingly made sure that the setlist went “serious topic, serious topic, very silly topic, serious topic, very personal topic.” I talk about my own issues, my own therapy, past girls I’ve dated, drama with some weird people that drank too much, my own weird sexual things. It’s a good special.
Jade: I’m curious! I’m excited to see it. I’m excited. It’s fun seeing your friend’s specials because you know them already…
Ben: [Laughing] I got so excited when we were asked to do this interview together, to interview each other, because like you said, you’re one of my closest friends in the world. We’ve been friends forever. It’s just cool to be able to promote each other and have this cool moment in our careers happen at the same time.
Jade: I can’t believe it! I feel like we kind of egged each other on like “let’s do it!” because I think, you know this, your first special is supposed to be this thing that people are like fighting over and then COVID hit and I was like “oh, nobody wants it should I even do it?.” Then I had to kind of realize that this isn’t about anybody else but me. It’s me getting this done and me putting this out there so people can see it.
Ben: Yeah you have to do it for yourself.
Jade: Yeah because every inch of the way was hard for me. This isn’t something that comes naturally. Even piecing it together nobody really taught me how to do it. I probably could’ve asked, but you know how I’m like “I wanna do it on my own!”
Ben: You could’ve asked me
Jade: I know! Just every little piece took me a long time to figure out and I did it on my own. It took me longer than most comics take to put out a special. I had to graduate from the material in a sense. You know what I mean? Putting this out there in a way is like graduating it. Now I can finally begin to write new material that feels closer to who I think I am now.
Ben: I’m about to retire that hour in a few days, so that’s my third
Jade: It’s scary!
Ben: -hour of comedy that I’ve retired.
Ben: I hope everybody watches your special. August 28th on Helium Comedy Studios YouTube.
It’s called “Jaded.” And your new TV show on Hulu called “Hotties” on August 16th.
Jade: Yes. Everybody watch Ben Gleib’s special, “Mad King,” up now on YouTube.
