'Maybe loving this show makes me a pervert, but whatever...'

The Daily Show writer Sophie Zucker shares her comedy favourites, ahead of her Edinburgh Fringe debut

The Daily Show writer Sophie Zucker will be coming to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for the first time this year with her musical comedy show Sophie Sucks Face, playing at the Underbelly in Bristo Square at 1015pm, starting on August 2. Here she shares her Perfect Playlist of comedy favourites.

The Nanny

I love this sitcom so much because the premise basically boils down to: Fran Drescher’s character (Fran Fine) is a Jew - what hijinks will she get into? Naturally I relate to it (I’m also a Jew with great hair), but I do think it’s cool to see someone absolutely mocking their culture in a way that still shows how proud they are of it.

Fran is sooooo Jewish - she has a codependent mother, she’d kill a woman for a half-priced fur coat - and that’s both the heart and the humour of the show.

Also, I love that auto-fictional trend of 1990s sitcoms, where the characters are heightened versions of the comics who created the show, and share the same first name. That’s what I like to do in a lot of my work - my ‘Sophie’ characters aren’t me, exactly, but where fiction ends and autobiography begins is blurry, and I like that.

Bo Burnham’s what

There’s a good chance I only feel a strong connection to Bo Burnham’s sophomore special because the first time I watched it I was on LSD and sobbing.

But besides that, ‘what.’ is a special that starts off so goofy and indulgent and then transitions into a stark portrait of what it means to be young and successful. Bo Burhanm does this so well - you think you’re watching him sing a silly song about how kids used to call him gay in high school but it turns out you’re witnessing his realisation that no one really knows who he is.

What you’re laughing at becomes something totally devastating. That fast flip of emotions really tugs at my heartstrings - hence the sobbing.

Bestie x Bestie (Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman)

I used to watch this Funny Or Die series in college, and I still have Jenny Slate’s description of ‘what books are’ reverberating in my head. That particular episode helped me see that sometimes the less cerebral description is the better joke.

When I started doing comedy, I was over-intellectual about it. I would write jokes that I thought ‘made sense’ and followed a recognisable structure. This particular joke taught me that sometimes doing a nonsense impression of an inanimate object is really the answer.

And the thing is, when Jenny Slate does her impression of ‘what a book is’ I was like, yes! That’s EXACTLY what books are like! The more guttural you go, sometimes the more relatable.

Archer

Unfortunately for me, sex puns are still one of my favourite kinds of comedy, so a show where the titular character is an alcoholic misogynist who fucks a lot is right up my alley.

Alcoholism is funny (until it’s not)! Misogyny is funny (until it’s not)! Sex is funny (until it’s…not)! And this show has an animated character doing all three.

Maybe loving a show where a square-headed cartoon spy sleeps with a lot of different women makes me a pervert, but whatever. I love a show that’s unapologetically dirty and NOT for children, like most of my comedy. They have Peppa Pig. I have Archer.

The Book of Mormon Soundtrack

Musical comedy at its finest! I listen to the Book of Mormon soundtrack whenever I’m starting to write a new musical comedy.

Bobby Lopez’s ability to advance the plot, pack in the jokes, and make incredibly catchy tunes is inspiring. What I love about the music in Book of Mormon is that it follows the structure that makes musicals so successful - every song has a big catchy headline like, You and Me (But Mostly Me about a mismatched duo where one thinks he’s more important than the other. Or I Am Africa where a white Mormon sings about how he represents the entire continent of Africa.

You know exactly what a song is going to be about from the title and in that way, the songs anchor the story. When I’m writing musical comedy, and the title of a song pops into my head before I even know what it will sound like, that’s usually the Book of Mormon influence.

Brian Jordan Alvarez’s TikToks

I am not a huge consumer of online comedy - I prefer cooking videos and Get Ready With Me ASMR - but I will always stop scrolling to watch whatever character Brian Jordan Alvarez has come up with.

Using just a face filter and an accent, Brian creates characters that feel so real and lived in. I truly have no idea how he comes up with them - they don’t feel referential to anything I’ve seen before. Can you believe that? A true original?

The thing that’s so impressive about Brian’s videos is that they’re all one take! There’s no editing to highlight a punchline, it’s just Brian as an international exchange student, rambling about his internship and somehow I’m crying laughing. I love character-driven comedy, punchlines that come from the circumstances they’re in or their wants and desires.