New Jersey-born comedian Marc Maron got his start performing stand-up comedy at the age of 24 at the Comedy Store in L.A. but he later moved to New York City and performed at open-mic nights in Greenwich Village. He even auditioned to join the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1995 but he got rejected (he suspected it was because he was high during his meeting with Lorne Michaels). But he continued with his comedy career, eventually becoming known by comedy fans for his personal, self-reflective and neurotic stage persona, and he eventually filmed stand-up specials for HBO, Comedy Central and Netflix (the big three for comedians). Plus he had an off-Broadway one-man show in 2000 called Jerusalem Syndrome. Despite these common solo efforts he does often collaborate with other comedians as well, including Eugene Mirman, Andy Kindler and Sam Seder.

In 2004, Marc Maron began a prolific career in radio when he was hired by Air America and started co-hosting early morning radio show Morning Sedition, which was more of a satirical take on radio programs than a traditional radio program. But it was a funny show and it had a loyal fan base. Although Air America executive Danny Goldberg did not “get” Marc Maron’s alternative humor and in 2005 he fired Maron from the show and shortly thereafter cancelled it. But Maron migrated to night time radio in 2006 with The Marc Maron Show, which might have worked out if Air America wasn’t so bad at promoting the show and if they stopped bumping its broadcast in favor of local sports. After that Maron teamed up with fellow comedian Sam Seder for a very informal weekly hour-long webcast called Breakroom with Maron & Seder in 2009. Which Air America also cancelled, marking the third time Air America fired Marc Maron.

Finally taking his broadcasting career into his own hands, Marc Maron left Air America and the radio business and decided to start a podcast in 2009 called WTF with Marc Maron which was produced by his former Air America co-worker Brendan McDonald. This was during a time when podcasts were not as popular as they are now and the show pretty much broke new ground and Maron gained a whole new level of fame because of it. Since 2009 Maron has recorded over 1,600 episodes, the show has been downloaded 600 million times, and it has also received critical acclaim for its smart, funny and often deep conversations. He often interviews his comedian friends on the show but he has also interviewed several high-profile celebrities. The most famous example is President Barack Obama but Maron has also interviewed Jerry Lewis, Carl Reiner, Dick Van Dyke, Carol Burnett, Mel Brooks, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Norman Lear, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, David Letterman, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Judd Apatow, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen among other prominent artists, performers and filmmakers. Maron said he plans to end the show in the fall of 2025 after a successful 16-year run. Which will be sad for me as someone who regularly listens to it, although there are plenty of episodes I have not heard in the back catalog that I can revisit so no huge loss.

Anyone who regularly listens to WTF may have noticed two other things about Marc Maron: he plays a mean guitar solo at the end of each episode, and at the beginning of each episode you can hear an audio clip of Maron yelling “Lock the gates!” which is lifted straight from the Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous (2000) in which Maron plays an angry promoter who shouts the line when the film’s main characters drive away from him on a bus. For a long time this is what Maron was best known for among filmgoers. But after gaining recognition for his podcast, he received more acting opportunities. He has appeared in films like Mike Birbiglia’s indie comedy Sleepwalk with Me (2012), the rom-com Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016), Lynn Shelton’s comedy Sword of Trust (2019), Todd Phillips’ Joker (2019), the Aretha Franklin biopic Respect (2021), critically acclaimed drama To Leslie (2022) and crime thriller The Order (2024) in addition to voicing Lex Luthor in DC League of Super Pets (2022) and Mr. Snake in DreamWorks Animation’s The Bad Guys (2022), a role he reprised in the 2025 sequel The Bad Guys 2.

Maron was also one of the presenters on Comedy Central’s Short Attention Span Theater (1989-94) alongside Jon Stewart, Patty Rosborough and Mark S. Allen, and he voiced himself in the animated comedy Dr. Katz in addition to creating and starring in the IFC sitcom Maron (2013-16), regularly voicing Randi in the Nicktoon Harvey Beaks (2015-17), playing wrestling league director Sam Sylvia in the Netflix wrestling comedy GLOW (2017-19) and having guest roles on Metalocalypse, Adventure Time, Louie, Girls, Easy, Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero, The Simpsons, Reservation Dogs and the Apple TV+ sports comedy Stick. Although in my mind, no matter where I see him, I will always think of him as that comedian with the podcast. And given how many comedians there are with podcasts these days, that’s an impressive accomplishment.