Comedian Joe List Talks Debut Documentary

Comedian and filmmaker Joe List

Cory Vanderploeg

Comedian and filmmaker Joe List wouldn’t be one of today’s top stand ups if he didn’t have a reverence for the game-changing class of comics that came before him.

List took notice when comedians like Jim Norton and the late Greg Giraldo traded verbal jabs on Comedy Central’s Tough Crowd and launched a brutally honest, no-holds-barred genre of self-deprecating humor in their acts.

List, whose debut documentary Tom Dustin: Portrait of a Comedian is now available on Punchup Live, is a prolific writer when it comes to his own material, and like the group he watched before honing his own comedy, always puts the jokes first.

“All those guys, Giraldo, Norton, Colin (Quinn), Bobby Kelly, they were all so funny first, and Keith Robinson, were all funny first, joke first and density of jokes,” List told Forbes.

“Comics that don’t have reverence for those guys or know those guys, I just don’t think are as strong. I think those guys and Tough Crowd really certainly laid the foundation for what we all want to do and try to do.”

List’s appreciation for comics that came before him has no doubt served him well.

“The first time I met Joe he slapped my hand away and spit on me,” Norton joked. “Being respected is always a great feeling, but honestly it won’t make you necessarily like someone you wouldn’t be inclined to like.

“People rooted for and respected Joe because he’s completely genuine and unique and the writing is incredible. He’s a great comic. Him being such a likeable person is just a bonus.”

The Tough Crowd group included stand up Nick Di Paolo, a prickly comic with a brutally sharp wit, who now tackles politics on his podcast, The Nick Di Paolo Show.

“I started opening for Di Paolo around ’06. He came to Boston and I did a show with him, and then he introduced me to Colin (Quinn) and I opened for Colin a few times,” List said. “So getting to know those guys and (watching) Tough Crowd… For me, being friends with Di Paolo was such an insane badge, because all those guys knew that Nick is, you know, a nut and dislikes so many people and is so judgmental about comedy in good ways.

“So people were like, ‘Wait, what?’ He recommended me at the Comedy Cellar and Estee (Adoram), the booker, was like, ‘Nick has never recommended anybody.’ And Colin Quinn always said, which I always appreciate, he said, ‘Nobody in the history of comedy has paid dues like you, being on the road with Nick for so long.’ So all that definitely helped.”

Tom Dustin: Portrait of a Comedian paints a beautiful, sometimes painful and often hilarious portrait of veteran comedian and comedy club owner Tom Dustin’s career, his decades-long friendship with List, and his struggles with depression and alcoholism.

“I just think Tom is such a great character. I love him. I think he’s hilarious. I’m interested in comedians that people just don’t know are working comedians,” List said. “There’s so many people that think there’s 50 comedians in the world, all the ones they know.

“And there’s so many great comics making a great living, doing stand up, living sort of a stand up life that aren’t in New York or LA and never went there. And Tom is just such a great character and it seemed like a great person to immortalize in a film.

“He’s got a million stories and he’s just such a unique guy and character, and it ended up becoming very much about our friendship and a relationship, but I just thought my original idea was just to have Tom telling all these great stories and show him doing stand up and killing Iguanas and running a club. It kind of became more of that, but he just seemed like a perfect character.”

Joe, who’s been sober for almost 13 years, can relate to Tom’s struggles.

“I knew that it’s hard to show Tom and sort of film Tom and document Tom without having an aspect of drinking. I mean, Tom is, by the way, at the time of (this interview), I think Tom hasn’t drank in like two months. Which is pretty amazing,” List shared.

“It’s one of those things where if you’re going to profile Tom and stand-up comedy, you can’t avoid it because he was drinking pretty excessively every night. So I thought that was an interesting thing as well, and then he was really so open and vulnerable (with) the effect it has on him.”

Like other comics, Joe found success in posting his specials on YouTube the past several years. His stand up found millions of viewers, many of whom would pay to come see him on the road. For his documentary, List partnered with Punchup Live for better compensation. The platform was founded by former Meta employees Danny Frenkel and Alex Dajani.

“I put so much stuff on YouTube and it’s great because it’s allowed me to have a great career because people see the specials and go, ‘Boy, I like this guy,’ and then they come see you live,” Joe said. “And so my ticket sales and road money have gone up, and you get a little bit of ad money, too, but those specials are expensive, and I pay for them out of pocket.

“It kind of makes the money back by people coming to see you lot, where this was a movie that was also very expensive. It ends up being like almost $30,000. People are used to buying movies or paying money to rent movies, so I just thought, let me see if I can get some of this money back.

“And it just feels like at this point, comedy specials are free. I mean, even if the comedy specials are on Netflix, people have Netflix, so they have access to a Netflix password. People aren’t really buying comedy specials much.

“I know a few people still do that, but movies, I think people are still ready and willing to pay a few bucks, and so I thought, you know, let me see if people will buy this. And so far, people have been, which has been really nice.

“And certainly, I didn’t make a documentary about a comedian no one’s ever heard of to make money, but I’d like to make the money back. That would be great. So that’s kind of my goal. I think that makes sense.”

The documentary made its world premiere at the 2024 Key West Film Festival and continued its festival run at the 2025 Sunscreen Film Festival. It went on to play in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities before heading exclusively to Punchup Live, which has quickly become a new destination for comics to share their work.