Greg Warren had been gearing up for the biggest gig in his career when he had to cancel it.
The Kirkwood-based comedian had been booked to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on November 4—an honor the 57-year-old had been waiting for a long time. “It used to be sort of the only thing, and there’s a million ways that people can find you now,” he told SLM in October. “But for me, it’s still really special, just because it is The Tonight Show.”
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But then, just one week before show time, Warren got a potentially life-changing call. His good friend Nate Bargatze’s assistant reached out to see if Warren could come to Nashville that week. Bargatze had a new show debuting on ABC and wanted Warren’s help.
Warren assumed Bargatze wanted help writing jokes to punch up the show. He reminded the assistant he was booked on The Tonight Show. “I said, ‘I’m pretty sure Nate doesn’t want me to not do that,’” he recalls. “‘But I’ll cancel the dates to help out, and I’ll be there if I need to.’”
A few minutes later, Bargatze himself called. “Hey, man, I don’t want you to write punch up,” Warren recalls him saying. “I want you to be on the show. I’ll talk to Jimmy if I need to, to make sure you get back on The Tonight Show.”
Warren’s not sure if Bargatze had to intervene or not. He just knows that Fallon rebooked him, and he finally made his Tonight Show debut in late December. But first, he got to film the show with Bargatze for ABC.
It’s called The Greatest Average American, and it takes its cue from Bargatze’s 2021 comedy special of the same name. “It’s an exciting game show, and it’s a lot of fun,” Warren says. “We had a blast.” He’s the co-host, which he suggests is basically being Ed McMahon to Bargatze’s Johnny Carson. While Warren has never done a network game show before, he says all of his podcast appearances (on his own as well as on Bargatze’s) were perfect preparation. “You’ve just got to learn to roll with stuff and be funny,” he says.
The show debuts February 26. Warren says they’ve already filmed eight episodes; the hope is that it’ll be a hit and ABC will want more.
Between that and Jimmy Fallon, Warren is on a hot streak, but he remains humble about his success. Asked if he nailed the Tonight Show appearance, he allows that he was happy with it, but then says, “A long time ago I stopped trying to nail stuff, I think, because then you become a machine. And nobody wants to watch a machine. They want to watch a human being.” Whatever the human being Greg Warren is doing, it seems to be working.
