A presidential election year is an optimal time to catch Bill Maher performing stand-up. His The WTF? Tour is booked through November, with the final Las Vegas dates scheduled days before the election and a recently added show set for Milwaukee right before the Republican Convention is held there. The tour comes at a time when Maher campaigns for sanity in reaction to voices at the extreme ends of the political spectrum speaking loudest while intolerance for opposing opinions seems to be at an all-time high.
Maher will be able to riff off events leading up to the convention and election in real time, or shortly afterward, much as he does on his HBO talk show, Real Time with Bill Maher. That successor to his groundbreaking series, Politically Incorrect, has kept Maher on television consistently for more than 30 years, with his recent foray into podcasting, Club Random with Bill Maher, elevating his visibility even higher.
Recent guests have included writer/filmmaker David Mamet, comedian Chris Distefano and country singer Trace Adkins, all three of whom are decidedly to the right of American politics’ 50-yard line. Maher is unconcerned about being canceled for the figures he invites to indulge in conversation, cocktails and cannabis. Pundits may remark that he’s transitioned from being a liberal to a libertarian, but Maher insists he has remained consistent in his beliefs as the goalposts around him have moved.
“I haven’t changed,” he says halfway through his 2022 HBO special, Bill Maher: #Adulting. “I really haven’t. I am still the same pot-smoking, childless, unmarried libertine I always was. I have many flaws, but you cannot accuse me of maturing.”
He now boasts an even dozen HBO comedy specials in a career that began at comedy club Catch a Rising Star in the late ’70s. Born in New York City, Maher attended Cornell University before heeding the call of stand-up stages. He graduated to appearing on talk shows and starred in 1983 ensemble comedy D.C. Cab, but his trajectory plateaued for the remainder of the decade.
He found work on films and television, losing a gig as correspondent of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” to Norm Macdonald, until Comedy Central offered him Politically Incorrect six years before Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show. The format called for a panel of four guests of diverse backgrounds and opinions. After the show was canceled in 2002, Maher was scooped up by HBO, and has enjoyed immense success since.
Real Time guests come solitary or in pairs, with Maher matching wits before a live audience with major political figures such as California governor Gavin Newsom. His two most popular YouTube videos are conversations with conservative podcasters Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, the latter of whom Maher was a “big fan” of at the time of his first meeting.
It’s safe to say Maher is still left-of-center. He’s not woke, though. Maher challenges the status quo of the right and left. He’ll continue to do so as long he has the energy and people seek sanity during insane times.
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