Daniel Lobell

From 2004 to 2012, Lobell ran the podcast Comical Radio, on which he interviewed more than 1,000 comedians.[3][7][13] In 2009, he created a webseries based on Comical Radio, Rise of the Radio Show,[9] which featured performances from Patrice O'Neal, Colin Quinn, J.B. Smoove, Dave Attell, and Brian Posehn.[14][13] Lobell shuttered Comical Radio in 2012 and moved to Los Angeles to expand his career.[7]

Lobell began a new podcast, Modern Day Philosophers, in 2013 with the idea of approaching classical philosophy through the lens of stand-up comics, who Lobell felt were the philosophers of the modern age,[15] telling one interviewer, "my feeling is that all the knowledge in the world is accessible to everybody, it’s just sometimes hidden in code."[16] Guests have included Marc Maron, Reggie Watts, and Maria Bamford.[16]

He also hosts medical website Doctorpedia's Leading Voices podcast.[17]

Lobell has released two albums on Stand Up! Records, 2013's Some Kind of Comedian and 2017's The Nicest Boy in Barcelona.[18][19] Reviewer Richard Lanoie, writing on The Serious Comedy Site, called Some Kind of Comedian unfocused but said "there is a hell of a lot to like."[20] Chris Milea of Stage Time magazine called the album "quite clever" and praised Lobell's "notable amount of ingenuity and risk-taking."[21] Reviews of Barcelona were stronger. Chris Spector of Midwest Record said Lobell had "mastered doing the observational thing without hitting you with it like a flying mallet",[22] while Lanoie called Barcelona a "rock solid" improvement on Lobell's first album.[8]

Lobell was an avid artist from childhood, and was inspired to pursue a career in comics by the examples of Stan Lee and Harvey Pekar. In 2018, Lobell began an autobiographical comic book, Fair Enough. The first issue covers his troubled school-age years and friendship with Pekar.[12][23]

Lobell performs regularly at the Laugh Factory and the Hollywood Improv in Los Angeles.[2] He has been a guest twice on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.[3][24]

In 2017, Lobell performed his autobiographical stand-up show Broke as a Joke at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Hollywood Fringe Festival. The show covers a number of Lobell's often-bizarre self-started business ventures, including stints as a breeder of hairless cats, a door-to-door lightbulb salesman, cleaning shark tanks in the Israeli city of Eilat,[11] and raising chickens with his neighbor, an Ecuadorian gang member.[4][10] Lobell followed in 2018 with Fat Chance, about his struggles with obesity.[25] He has performed multiple times at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival.[26]

He performed in and contributed writing for Hasidic comic Mendy Pellin's 2014 series Jewbellish the News.[27]

He directed a short film in 2018 entitled 'Stool Me Once' starring Michael Croner that was filmed and edited by Bruno Kohfield-Galeano. [28] [29]

His work has been featured on This American Life[30] and TedX.[11] He is a frequent essayist for various publications focused on Jewish life, including The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles[31] and the website Aish.com.[32][33]