Hopeful Potato
Dropout · 2025 · 78 min
Aparna Nancherla's first special since The Standups (2018). Released on Dropout.
The set list
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Kids as the original colonizers
Explaining why she does not want kids by describing how they show up, flip the power hierarchy, deplete all your resources, and make you display their art everywhere.
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Taking a break from stand-up for a comeback moment
Joking that she stepped away from stand-up specifically so she could orchestrate a big comeback.
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Aging in her 40s
Describing how her body is slowing down, including involuntarily groaning 'oh, my bones' the moment her butt hit a seat.
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Finding herself on wikiFeet
Discussing the awkward realization and public discovery of her wikiFeet page during a live comedy show segment.
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Thanking herself in the credits
Crediting herself for simply showing up despite perfectionism and chronic self-doubt.
How it plays
- Tone
- Sardonic, self-aware, deadpan, whimsical, and feel-good.
- On stage
- Trademark deadpan-whimsical humor with a sardonic, self-aware, and self-deprecating inner monologue.
- About
- social anxiety, mental health, relationship dynamics, benefits of aging, not wanting kids, self-doubt
Backstory
Her first full-length hourlong comedy special.
Material developed after Nancherla quit and stepped away from stand-up due to crippling anxiety while writing her 2023 book 'Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Imposter Syndrome' and confronting lifelong impostor syndrome.
Details
- Released
- Runtime
- 78 min
- Where
- Dropout
- Director
- Eliza M. Skinner
- Before
- The Standups (2018)
More from Aparna Nancherla
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The Standups
Netflix
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The Half Hour
Comedy Central