\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/02-jeff-ross-banana_crEmilio-Madrid_billboard-1800.jpg?w=300\")
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\t\t\t\t\tJeff Ross: Take A Banana For the Ride<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEmilio Madrid<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n\tThe show is also about the life experiences that led you to become a comedian. <\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt was the trickle of living in New Jersey where ball-busting is the love language \u2014 where all the radio stations and sports teams say they\u2019re from New York, so you get a bit of a chip on your shoulder. It was working in my dad\u2019s catering hall as a boy and as a teenager. My entire childhood was being the boss\u2019s son and having all the Scottish and Irish waitresses and waiters, the Russian guy making fruit salads, the Hungarian guy who made the Jell-O molds and the Haitian guys in the kitchen busting my chops for being the boss\u2019s son. Getting bullied as a little kid and my mom dragging me off to karate school. It\u2019s all of these things. They toughened me up. The origin story, at least how I tell it in the show, is all this stuff. If I had to point to one pivotal thing, then it\u2019s that first roast.<\/p>\n \n\tThat\u2019s right, you got your black belt in karate when you were quite young. <\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tSecond youngest black belt in the United States. Good luck researching that one.<\/p>\n \n\tDoes it help with being a comedian? <\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt helped get me the confidence to talk smack for a living, for sure.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did you bring this show to Broadway?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThat was something I was saying as a joke. Oh, I\u2019d love to do it on Broadway. Or other people would say it, and I would do superstitious stuff like my mom did. She used to go ptuh-ptuh-ptuh. Then, in the last couple of years, Jim Carrey taught me about manifesting. He said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe it, who\u2019s going to believe it? You have to speak it into truth.\u201d That also motivated me to make the show better. To make something really great is an unbelievable amount of work \u2014 whether it was getting my black belt at ten-and-a-half or producing The Roast. Then, by chance, an old Friars Club pal, Marc Cornstein, grabbed ahold of the idea of taking it to Broadway. He started raising money and hooked me up with the Nederlanders.<\/p>\n \n\tThere\u2019s a musical element to Take A Banana For The Ride.<\/strong> You have a keyboardist and a violin player onstage with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tAsher Denberg is our musical director and the keyboardist onstage. Felix Herbst is the violinist. Having some music in the show is my way of paying tribute to some of the older comics who always did that type of thing. There\u2019s a song about my dog from the voice of my German Shepherd, \u201cYou\u2019re One of the Good Ones.\u201d And there\u2019s the singalong about my family and my origin story called \u201cDon\u2019t F\u2014k With The Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI love comedians, but I also really love musicians. I love Broadway music. We\u2019re listening to show tunes all day in my dressing room and at rehearsal. So being able to work in a world-class theater with world-class musicians \u2014 comedians always say they want to host the Oscars. For me it was always the Grammys. I love music, and I love the musicians and a bunch of them are coming to opening night.<\/p>\n \n\tYou wrote the songs?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI co-wrote them with my friend Avery Pearson.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat are some of the show tunes you listen to backstage, and do you like any contemporary artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI love new music. Chappell Roan <\/a>and Olivia Rodrigo<\/a> are favorites \u2014 and I first saw Benson Boone <\/a>at Clive Davis\u2019 Grammys party, and instantly fell in love with his music and showmanship.\u00a0But in the dressing room before my show, I\u2019ve been listening to Man of La Mancha a lot. I\u2019ve been very influenced by \u201cThe Impossible Dream\u201d and \u201cMan of La Mancha.\u201c Maybe because my parents had the 8-track.<\/p>\n \n\tHow did you get into the roast business?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tIt was a happy accident. I have to credit my pal Greg Fitzsimmons for inviting me to his dad\u2019s honorary golf tournament. It was a Friars Club tournament at a golf club in New Jersey, and [Friars Dean] Freddie Roman was teasing me and picking on me because no one knew who I was. I walked up and started making fun of him. He was so loud and boisterous. I said they call him Freddie Roman because you can hear him in Italy. It was such a small joke, but no one had ever taken a swing at the head of the Friars before, especially some goofball kid that nobody knew.<\/p>\n \n\tMonths later, they couldn\u2019t get any stars to do the roast. It was corny and antiquated. I got the call from [executive director] Jean-Pierre [Trebot] at the Friars Club. He said, \u201cYou were funny at the golf club. Do you want to do the roast?\u201d I had to go to the Museum of Broadcasting to see what the roasts were about. This was 30 years ago, so I couldn\u2019t look it up on Google or YouTube.<\/p>\n \n\tI was more into the rock \u2019n\u2019 roll comedy of Steve Martin<\/a>, Eddie Murphy<\/a> and the Blues Brothers, but I said, \u201cThis is kind of funny.\u201d I\u2019m kind of like this anyway. I didn\u2019t really care much about Steven Seagal, who was being roasted, but I was taken by the idea of being up there with Buddy Hackett and Henny Youngman and Milton Berle who were all there at my first roast.<\/p>\n \n\tYou made it into a career.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWell, it became my lane. There were years where it was lucrative but not necessarily cool. And then I got advice from Dave Chappelle <\/a>that it was my job to make my lane a six-lane highway. I embraced that and realized I can\u2019t keep waiting for celebrities to agree to get roasted in a tuxedo. I have to figure out other ways to do it. That birthed the idea of me speed-roasting volunteers from the audience at my standup shows, the roast battles and the historical roasts. I even roasted at a jail. It\u2019s on Paramount+. Jeff Ross Roasts Criminals Live from Brazos County Jail. <\/p>\n \n\tIs it true that celebrities would hire you to write jokes so that they would look good when it was their turn to roast or to be roasted?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI wouldn\u2019t say I was hired by them. I was always a producer and a writer on those shows, and part of my responsibility would be the booking, writing, the promotion and appearing on the show. Back then, The Roast had a small budget, and we did everything. I wore a lot of hats \u2014 I guess I still do, but I have a lot more help now.<\/p>\n \n\tRoast jokes are often politically incorrect, anti-woke \u2014 whatever terminology you prefer. What do you make of the whole woke vs. anti-woke humor debate?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI feel like it\u2019s something that everyone talks about except the comedians. To me it\u2019s binary in a different way than woke or not woke. It\u2019s funny or not funny. It never affected me. People are telling me that the Tom Brady roast \u2013 because there hadn\u2019t been one in five years \u2014 helped recalibrate mainstream comedy a little bit back to let\u2019s call it normal or edgy or irreverent. I\u2019m proud of that notion, but in Jeff Ross Land it\u2019s always roast time. It\u2019s just that the rest of the world is catching up. <\/p>\n \n\tI saw it firsthand Saturday night after the show here at the Nederlander. I went out to sign Playbills and say hi to people, and there were three sets of teenage boys with their dads. I found it striking that 13, 14, 15-year-old boys were knowing me from the Tom Brady roast. From there they look at the Justin Bieber roast and the jail roast. Then they go \u201cOh, that\u2019s roasting. I\u2019m going to do that with my friends.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s a sign of affection. It\u2019s their version of karaoke. That makes me immensely happy.<\/p>\n \n\tThat was always the motto at the Friars Roasts. We do it with love.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI always felt like the roasts were the extensions and celebrations of friendships. I feel like my show is similar. It\u2019s a tribute to some of the people who made me who I am. Because it\u2019s about them I can do it every night. If it was only about me, I would have a hard time getting past the first week. I would get bored. But I really feel proud when I\u2019m standing there and the video message that Bob [Saget] sent me plays or Gilbert sings a song from Fiddler on the Roof. They\u2019re getting one more turn at the mic.<\/p>\n \n\tDo you have any rules for roasting? <\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tMy general rule for roasting is to only roast volunteers. Once they opt in, anything goes.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWhat went through your head when Tom Brady said what he said to you at his roast? <\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tVirtually nothing was going through my head when Brady interrupted me, except \u201ckeep going.\u201d We were having fun, and I always love a little verbal sparring during the roasts.\u00a0\u00a0Tom was sticking up for a father figure, and I respect that.\u00a0Mr. Kraft was very gracious, and a great sport afterwards.<\/p>\n \n\tWas Brady aware of how vicious his roast was going to get?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI don\u2019t think any of us knew how rough that roast was going to be. I mean, from the get-go: Kevin Hart, me, Nikki [Glaser<\/a>], Tony [Hinchcliffe]<\/a> Andrew [Schulz], Gronk. We all went as hard as we could. And once you see Tom being a good sport and taking the jokes so well, you put your foot on the gas.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the real bravery was Tom saying yes in the first place. You\u2019ve got to give him credit for agreeing to do a roast after no one, for five years, would say yes. This guy had the thick skin and was so confident in who he was that he said, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tI said to him, \u201cWhy are you doing this?\u201d He was like, \u201cI love the roasts, and I want to bring it all back.\u201d To his credit and I guess to the credit of the roast, everything he would want from his life career-wise seems to have worked out great. He immediately became part owner of a team. He immediately launched this incredible broadcasting career, and he\u2019s doing Super Bowl commercials with his old teammates. I feel like the roast kind of melted away some of the ice that he may have had with his coach and his owner and maybe even his players. I think it did a lot for him.<\/p>\n \n\tAre there more Netflix roasts on the boards?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tWe have something cooking, but I can\u2019t talk about it yet.<\/p>\n \n\tWhat do you make of the Friars Club\u2019s New York headquarters being sold in foreclosure?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tThe Friars Club thing<\/a> hurts because it feels like that\u2019s my alma mater. It especially hurts now because I always had this fantasy of doing a Broadway show, then going to lunch at the Friars Club and having everybody come over and tell me how much they loved it. This would have been a great time to be a Friar for me. <\/p>\n \n\tNow I\u2019m at the Yard House. It\u2019s not quite the same. The jambalaya is good, but it\u2019s not quite the Friars Club, where you would see people in the steam room, in the gym and there was a poker tournament, a pool tournament, a charity fundraiser. And then there were big events like the roasts. That is sadly in the past, and it breaks my heart.<\/p>\n \n\tIn terms of manifesting what\u2019s next for Jeff Ross?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tA cup of tea. A puff of weed. Get into my costume. I get to ride this incredible wave of emotions and laughs every night for the next two months. I\u2019ve never done anything for two months in comedy. I\u2019m not looking past this. When I was a young \u2014 before I became a comedian \u2014 my Aunt Bess would take me to Broadway shows. She took me to see Jackie Mason<\/a> do his one-person show. I thought it was so cool. He didn\u2019t have dancers, he didn\u2019t have music, it was just him ripping the roof off the theater for an hour-and-a-half. I was like wow, that is the pinnacle of show business. If I can do that then I\u2019m good. I can see myself retiring. That\u2019s how much I like doing this gig.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.billboard.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you\u2019re not familiar with Jeff Ross, he is best known as the \u201cRoastmaster General\u201d \u2014 a three-decade master of the savage comic sport introduced by the Friars Club in the 1950s, in which a procession of comedians and wannabe smart-asses barrage a roastee with decidedly no-holds-barred insults crafted to evoke laughter and gasps. Ross […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1963008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[22339,346346],"class_list":["post-1963007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-comedy","tag-comedy-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Roastmaster-General-Jeff-Ross-Talks-About-His-New-Broadway-Show.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1963007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1963008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1963007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1963007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1963007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}