We’re not talking about Jimmy’s crowd work here (Heckle Amnesty), although it’s kind of a form of “roasting” his audience at times. That’s been covered here.
This is about the roast genre and, to look at roasting, we have to first of all agree that there are 2 slightly different types of roast performance.
- A Comedy Roast – one person (President Donald Trump, Rob Lowe etc.) is on stage, to be roasted by various comedians, friends or colleagues
- A Roast Battle – where 2 comedians are allowed a set number of very personalised jokes to throw at the other person
The first type just carries on an old tradition of “insult comedy” and people agree to be the “roastee” to show that they are a good sport.
The second type is a competition, where 2 comics “battle” it out (with a pre-set number of jokes) in front of a set of judges and 1 person is judged to have won the battle, by having better jokes.
Jimmy has performed, competed, hosted or judged in/on both types – and has a fearsome reputation, amongst other comedians.
First, we need a little bit of background…but, please note, I’m only skimming the surface of the history of the genre and mostly focussing on it from the points / people involving Jimmy.
Friars Club / A Comedy Roast
The Friars Club used to be called the Press Agents’ Association and they started holding annual roasts back in 1904. Picking a volunteer from their members.
By 1949 the format evolved to include music artists, actors and comedians and started to be televised in the late 60s. These original Friars Club roasts were shown by Comedy Central US from 1998-2002 but they then developed their own version.
Along the way there was also The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast specials, shown in the US from 1974 to 1984. The full episodes are on YouTube – here.
It pretty much wasn’t a thing in the UK – until we got our own Roast Battle show in 2018, despite C4 dipping their toes in the water in 2010 (more on both, below).
To find out more about the origins, try this Vulture story or search for stories about The Friars Club (their website is defunct). There is also a history of the Comedy Central story here.
Jeff Ross / The Roastmaster General
At this point we need to stop and mention Jeff Ross. He was involved in The Friars Club’s A Comedy Roast in the 90s and he was instrumental in pushing to get it moved on to Comedy Central and has also been involved in Roast Battles. His name will pop up more throughout this post as Jimmy often works with him (all posts are here).
Brian Moses / Birth of Roast Battle
Brian is on a Podcast (here) talking about how the Comedy Store LA spawned Roast Battle (the format). Around 4 minutes he explains how a door guy didn’t like one of the comics and so outed him as not yet being 21 (therefore underage, for the club).
They had an argument in the car park (or parking lots, in American vernacular) and the comic, who was due to turn 21 the following week, said he would return to slap the door guy.
Brian intervened and was talking about letting them slap it out in the Belly Room but then remembered that there were recently installed cameras in there. So, they had an insult battle…and roast battle was born (around 2013). Jimmy referenced this story in Roast Battle promo pages in his Terribly Funny tour programme (here).
Roast Battle evolved into a worldwide format with its own league, YouTube channels etc. Posts relating to Brian and Jimmy are here.
Comedy Central / 2016
Jeff Ross got a commission in 2016 to host Jess Ross Presents Roast Battle. Brian Moses also featured and celebrities appeared as judges, across the 3 seasons.
A UK version was hosted by Jimmy Carr – see below.
Jimmy’s Roast “Career” (so far)
Although a lot of the general public (certainly in the UK) would know that Jimmy is a stand-up and TV presenter – I doubt many would be aware of how successful he’s been within the 2 roast formats.
2010 / UK / A Comedy Roast
C4 had a go at introducing roasting to a British audience with a 5-part series of A Comedy Roast (see here). The “roastees” were household names and so were the comedians (and friends) doing the roasting. The series host (in a Roastmaster role) was Jimmy Carr.
Episode 1 (Bruce Forsyth) drew around 1.87m viewers, which wasn’t bad for C4 and was around 10% of the audience available. The broadcast of Episode 2 (Chris Tarrant) dropped to a little over 1.4m viewers.
Interestingly this BCG story (here) said that C4 had announced that their 2010 Winter Comedy line-up would include a re-commission of A Comedy Roast, but it never went ahead.
Image below is Jimmy with Barbara Windsor (Ep5 – here).
2014 / Central Africa / Roast of Kenny Kunene
Comedy Central took the “Comedy Roast” to Johannesburg and hired Jimmy as Roastmaster. See here.
2015 / JFL / Montreal
At Just For Laughs 2015 Jeff Ross was Roastmaster on The Roastmaster Invitational. 16 comedians entered and only 1 Jimmy Carr emerged triumphant, with the trophy. See here.
Image is Jeff Ross, Jimmy and Brian Moses.
2016 / JFL / Montreal
At Just For Laughs 2016 Jeff Ross was again the Roastmaster on The Roastmaster Invitational. 16 comedians entered and Jimmy was eliminated by Earl Skakel in the semi-finals (which did not go down well with viewers). See here.
2016 / US / Roast of Rob Lowe
In The Roast of Rob Lowe Jimmy may have been the only Brit in a line-up that featured Jeff Ross – but he stole the show. He turned his verbal gun on Ann Coulter and cracked a 911 Pete Davidson joke that grabbed headlines. See here.
2018 / UK /Roast Battle
Comedy Central UK picked up where C4 had left off and made Jimmy head judge on a panel of 3 comedians. Brian Moses introduced all the pairs of battlers and it ran for 4 seasons – see here.
2019 / JFL / Montreal
At Just For Laughs 2019 Jeff Ross was again the Roastmaster on The Roastmaster Invitational. 16 comedians entered and Jimmy was eliminated in the semi-finals by K. Trevor Wilson. See here.
2021 / London, Apollo / Dave Chappelle
In October Chappelle did 6 nights at the Apollo and Jimmy joined the gig on the 14th. Christened the “Duke of Diss” (by Ross) Jimmy and Jeff brought audience members on stage to speed roast them. See here.
2023 / Australia / Dave Chappelle
On Jimmy’s last Aus / NZ tour (in 2023) he had a night off and caught a flight to be a part of Chappelle’s show in Melbourne – here. Once again Jimmy and Jeff Ross brought audience members on stage for a roasting.
2024 / USA / Roast of Tom Brady
Jimmy didn’t participate in the actual roast, but was in the audience. He did get some of his material used though – see here.
2024 / Netflix is a Joke Fest / Roast Battle League
There was an RBL (Roast Battle League) tournament held during the 2024 Netflix is a Joke Fest festival and Jimmy was a judge, with Jeff Ross as the Roastmaster.
See here
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