Preview:
- Marc Maron is to end his ‘WTF with Marc Maron’ podcast.
- He reveals he’s burned out on hosting the show, but “utterly satisfied.”
- Past guests have included Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Keith Richards and Barack Obama.
One of the early adopters of the celebrity podcast interview format, comedian and actor Marc Maron, is hanging up his headphones.
Maron, who in addition to his standup and other work has been in movies such as ‘To Leslie’ and animated effort ‘The Bad Guys’ (where he voices Snake), launched ‘WTF with Marc Maron’ in September 2009. And via a story in Deadline, he’s announced that the show will come to a close –– at least, its regular twice-weekly version, this coming fall.
vY6fwLQcSqDcQXYQL2zRK6Maron had this to say about the decision on a recent episode:
“Sixteen years we’ve been doing this, and we’ve decided that we had a great run. Now, basically, it’s time, folks. It’s time. ‘WTF’ is coming to an end. It’s our decision. We’ll have our final episode sometime in the fall.”
Related Article: Marc Maron Talks ‘To Leslie’ and What He’s Learned from Hosting ‘WTF’
What’s the history of ‘WTF with Marc Maron’?
A slow-burn success since its launch, the podcast has had 1.1 billion downloads, listens and impressions since its launch with 1,645 episodes as well as more than 300 bonus episodes for premium subscribers.
Maron has interviewed comedy greats, A-list actors and even Presidents. His June 2015 interview with President Barack Obama broke the record for ‘WTF’s hosting service, Libsyn, for most downloads in a 24-hour period by more than double the previous record. President Obama travelled to Maron’s garage in Highland Park, California to discuss race relations and gun violence.
Other standout episodes include Todd Glass coming out in 2012 and a 2010 episode with Robin Williams, which was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry in 2022.
Maron, whose first ever guest was Jeff Ross, has also interviewed the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt as well as SNL creator Lorne Michaels, who was one of Maron’s white whales, the most discussed person on the podcast and the man who Maron needed closure from after a meeting that haunted him in the 1990s.
Maron and his producer Brendan McDonald were the recipients of the first-ever Governors Award by the Podcast Academy for Excellence in Audio at The Ambies in 2021.
Marc Maron talks more about the end of ‘WTF’
Here’s Maron discussing why he chose to end the show now:
“It really comes down to the fact that we’ve put up a new show every Monday and Thursday for almost sixteen years and we’re tired. We’re burnt out. And we are utterly satisfied with the work we’ve done. We’ve done great work. This doesn’t mean I’m never going to do something like this again. Doesn’t mean I’ll never have talks like I do here, or some kind of podcast at some point in time. But for now, we’re just wrapping things up. It’s okay. It’s okay to end things. It’s okay to try to start some other chapter in your life.”
And on his other reasons:
“It’s nice to be able to end things on our terms. We’ve always had that power to do that and that’s what we’re going to do. We started the show on our terms, we grew it on our terms, and we’ll end it on our terms.”
Where else have we seen Marc Maron?
Maron initially came to prominence through his stand-up and has had several specials.
Outside of that and ‘WTF’, stand-up comedian and podcast host.
He’s hosted ‘The Marc Maron Show,’ and been co-host of both ‘Morning Sedition’ and ‘Breakroom Live,’ all politically-oriented shows, produced under the auspices of Air America Media.
He was also the host of Comedy Central’s ‘Short Attention Span Theater’ for a year, replacing Jon Stewart.
Maron has been a frequent guest on the ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ and made 44 appearances on ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien,’ more than any other stand-up performer.
He was also a regular guest on ‘Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn’ and hosted the short-lived American version of the British game show ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ on VH1.
Aside from hosting and comedy work, he’s built an impressive acting career on screens big and small, including movies such as ‘The Order,’ ‘Joker,’ ‘Sleepwalk with Me,’ ‘Almost Famous’ and ‘Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.’
TV acting-wise, his credits include ‘Reservation Dogs,’ ‘GLOW,’ ‘Maron’ and ‘Roadies.’
Where will we find Marc Maron next?
Coming up, he’s starring in Rob Burnett’s movie ‘In Memoriam’ alongside Judy Greer, Sharon Stone and Regina Hall, and is playing Bruce Springsteen’s producer Chuck Plotkin in Scott Cooper’s Jeremy Allen White-led biopic about The Boss, ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere.’
On the TV side, this week will see him appear alongside Owen Wilson in Apple TV+ golf comedy series ‘Stick.’
List of Other Movies and TV Shows Featuring Marc Maron:
- ‘Short Attention Span Theater’ (1993)
- ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ (1994)
- ‘Girls’ (2015)
- ‘Almost Famous‘ (2000)
- ‘Sleepwalk with Me’ (2012)
- ‘Maron’ (2013)
- Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)
- ‘Roadies’ (2016)
- ‘GLOW’ (2017)
- ‘Joker’ (2019)
- ‘Reservation Dogs’ (2021)
- ‘The Bad Guys’ (2022)
- ‘To Leslie’ (2022)
- ‘The Order’ (2024)
- ‘Stick‘ (2025)
- ‘The Bad Guys 2’ (2025)
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