'It's A Good Palette Cleanser After Reading The News': Samantha Ruddy On Her Comedy Album & Working For Samantha Bee

(CBS Local)-- It's an interesting time for comedy. The coronavirus has shut down all live entertainment and sports in New York and Samantha Ruddy is trying to figure out how to navigate these times as a stand-up comic and digital producer for "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee."

Ruddy released a new comedy album earlier this month and had plans to showcase her new material all over New York. While those performances are on hold, the good news is that Ruddy and her colleagues at Full Frontal are able to flex their creative muscles in a new way.

"It's my favorite job I've ever had by far," said Ruddy in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "I feel like we're living in a very stressful time. It feels good to wake up and go somewhere where I'm proud to work. Because of everything going on right now, we're actually taping in Sam's backyard. Our first episode aired last week. We're still doing the show and we're still working from home. Sam and her family are doing the heavy lifting. It's weird as hell, but we're making it work."

While comedians enjoying riffing on stage during their comedy sets about politics and the state of the world, Ruddy prefers to keep her comedy on the lighter side, with an occasional dark twist.

"Even though I work at a very political show and I would classify my Twitter [account] as pretty political, my stand-up is not," said Ruddy. "It's very goofy and very silly. It can be a little dark, but it is always on the sillier side of things. I think if you are looking for an escape in this very hard time, that is terrorizing pretty much the entire country, it's not a bad listen. It's pretty chill. A lot of Mountain Dew jokes, chicken nugget jokes, very fun stuff. It's a good little palette cleanser after reading the news."

While Ruddy has performed at comedy clubs in Brooklyn and Manhattan, the best comedic experience of her career came when she took the stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

"The most pivotal moment of my career was probably performing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," said Ruddy. "Everything sort of snowballed from there. It led to my current job. I was able to use my tape to get noticed by them. It also has led to a lot more touring dates. When you do your first late night [show], it kind of gives you a confidence you didn't have before. It feels very validating to have been a very tiny fraction of this institution."

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