ABOUT MIKE BINDER

STANDUPWORLD.COM

I’m Mike Binder, Standupworld’s editor. I love stand-up comedy, and I love comedians. (These are three of my all-time favorites)

These are two comedians, kids that I’m still teaching some stuff too.

This bunch below were all raised in the orphanage-slash-workhouse for comedians I run. (I’m so very proud.)

The ‘special needs’ boy (because we can’t say ‘retarded’ in comedy anymore) who’s holding the helmet/bedpan, still sadly wets the bed.

The bald, fit, guy next to him is smiling like that because he’d recently been paid well over five thousand dollars for the lifetime rights to his ‘work’ (which I told him was a good deal.)

The young lady with the goofy over-smile next to him is indeed ‘retarded’, and, yes, you can say that when it’s at that advanced of a stage, because, she’ll never know.

Me, I’m just about to pass out from holding my stomach in.

I will make a prediction and say the good looking dude at the far right in the hat with the Cheshire Cat grin is going to be the President of the USA one day. (*At least that’s what everyone at his rehab is saying.)

A little back-story; I grew up in Detroit. In 1977 I left home at eighteen to come to Los Angeles to have a penile extension and a personality transplant and stayed on to pursue a career as a comedian.

I was discovered at eighteen by Mitzi Shore and then by the great Norman Lear, who eventually healed from throwing out his neck and jawline to pose for this picture.

I performed on talk shows from my late teens, toured colleges, played Las Vegas, appeared in specials, and acted in TV shows, films, and my own HBO series.

This was my HBO series. It was a MASSIVE HIT. The Mind of the Married Man. It changed television. Ask anybody. It had hundreds and hundreds of viewers.

I acted in movies for Stephen Speilberg, (Minority Report) and my good buddy, Rod Lurie, (The Contender) among others.

I eventually was able to write and direct my own films, working with Kevin Costner, Octavia Spencer, Keri Russel, Evan Rachel Wood, Erica Christensen, the late great, Allen Rickman, Joan Allen, Ben Affleck, Adam ‘Sandoo’ Sandler, and Anthony Mackie. 

‘The Upside of Anger’

The Search for John Gissing’

*NOTE; Below frame in this photo below, Kevin Costner is rubbing my inner thigh, silently telling me how much he likes my ‘porn-stache’.

‘The Upside of Anger’.

In 2020 we released a five-part documentary on The Comedy Store, and I was lucky enough to get to direct Bill Burr’s classic Netflix special ‘Paper Tiger’ from the Royal Albert Hall.  

Standupworld is my newest project. A substack newsletter, a series of books, specials, docs, a website, and a unique platform. All coming soon.

Oh, yeah, in the last decade I’ve lost a boatload of my hair and have been utterly rejected by most of Hollywood for being old, white, and stupid. So I’m bitter, which hopefully is a good thing in terms of being funny. Please pass along, subscribe, enjoy, and let me know what you like and what you don’t. (Actually, just let me know what you like.)

Thanks.

Share Standup World / Mike Binder

GET A FREE GIFT

Subscribe to Standup World

A newsletter about the deep state of stand-up comedy from someone who's spent his life inside of it. A blog from someone who loves the art form knows the players and wants to write about it and share his stories, thoughts, and opinions.

People

Writer, director, Stand-up comic. Editor of Standupworld.com Husband and father of two. Former Detroiter. Stand-up comedy fanatic.