Matt Koff is a stand-up comedian and television writer who spent 13 years on The Daily Show, won a 2015 Emmy, performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar, and on March 10, 2026, released his second comedy special — shot in the same room where Mint Comedy streams.
He Made His Special at the Same Table You’re Watching From
When Matt Koff decided to shoot his second comedy special, he didn’t rent a theater in LA or book a performance venue with a production-friendly green room. He went to the Comedy Cellar. The room where Mint Comedy streams. The room where you might have seen him work on the same material over the past year, testing lines in front of a crowd that doesn’t give you anything for free.
Cat Man premiered on Veeps on March 10, 2026, and the fact that it exists at all is worth stopping on. Koff has spent 13 years as a staff writer on The Daily Show — seven Emmy nominations, one win in 2015, eight Writers Guild Award nominations. That’s the kind of career that could make a person stop doing the hard thing. The thing where you stand alone in a small room and try to make strangers laugh about your divorce and your cats. He kept doing it anyway. He does it at the Cellar. And then he shot his special there.
What “How Sweet” Tells You About the Special
The Mint Comedy clip from his Cellar set is called “How Sweet” — and if you’ve watched it, you already have a preview of what Cat Man is doing. Koff works in a register that’s easy to underestimate on first pass: conversational, self-deprecating, slightly rumpled. He sounds like he’s thinking out loud. He’s not. Every beat is placed. The “how sweet” premise is built around a specific social moment — the patronizing affirmation, the tone of voice people use when they’re impressed by something they consider beneath them — and he milks it past the point where most comedians would have moved on, finding a second and third layer that the setup didn’t telegraph.
That’s the Daily Show muscle showing. When you write political comedy for 13 years alongside Jon Stewart, you get trained to find the second story inside the obvious story. The thing behind the thing. Koff brings that into his stand-up. The cat premise in Cat Man isn’t really about cats — it’s about the way middle-aged men are perceived when they choose softness, when they live alone and own something that doesn’t need them. That’s a more interesting bit than “cats are weird.” He knows that. The Cellar crowd knows that.
Jon Stewart Showed Up
One of the details in the Deadline piece announcing the special is easy to scroll past but worth sitting with: Jon Stewart makes a cameo in Cat Man. The production team was largely Daily Show alumni — director David Paul Meyer, producer Asad Bokhari, art director Becca Gialanella. These are people who have worked with Koff for over a decade. When you’ve spent 13 years in a writers’ room together, you show up for each other’s things. Stewart showed up.
It matters because it tells you something about who Matt Koff is in the comedy world. He’s not a performer trying to leverage a famous co-worker’s name. He’s a person who built real relationships over a long career, and those relationships produced a better special — shot at the place he actually performs, with the people he actually works with, featuring a cameo from his actual boss. That specificity is what makes Cat Man feel like a real document of a comedian’s life, not a product.
Why the Comedy Cellar Was the Right Call
The choice to shoot at the Cellar instead of a bigger room is a statement. The Comedy Cellar is not a venue you book because it’s impressive on a press release. You book it because you know the crowd is going to tell you the truth. Cellar audiences have seen everyone. They’ve seen the headliners on off nights and the newcomers on perfect nights, and they’ve learned not to give out laughs they don’t mean. When a comedian shoots a special there, they’re betting that their material is good enough to work in the room that doesn’t lie to you.
Koff won that bet. And watching his Cellar clip on Mint Comedy, you can see exactly why. He’s at home there in a way that reads onscreen — relaxed enough to trust the pauses, confident enough to sit in the silence before the laugh arrives. That ease comes from years of doing it in that room, which is also what makes the special worth watching. Cat Man isn’t a comedian performing for a camera. It’s a comedian performing for a crowd, with a camera in the room.
That’s the version of stand-up Mint Comedy was built to show you. Watch Matt Koff’s live Cellar clip here, check out his full profile on Mint Comedy, and catch Cat Man on Veeps.
FAQ: Matt Koff
Who is Matt Koff?
Matt Koff is a stand-up comedian and television writer who spent 13 years on The Daily Show, earning seven Emmy nominations and winning in 2015. He won New York’s Funniest Stand-Up in 2023 and performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar. His second special, Cat Man, premiered on Veeps on March 10, 2026.
What is Matt Koff’s new comedy special?
Cat Man is Koff’s second comedy special. It premiered on Veeps on March 10, 2026, was shot at the Comedy Cellar in New York, and features a cameo from Jon Stewart. It covers divorce, middle age, and the stigma around men who own cats.
Does Jon Stewart appear in Matt Koff’s special?
Yes. Stewart makes a cameo in Cat Man. Much of the production team also came from The Daily Show, where Koff worked for 13 years.
Where can I watch Matt Koff perform live?
Matt Koff is a regular at the Comedy Cellar in New York. Mint Comedy streams live shows from the Cellar at mintcomedy.com/live-shows. You can also watch his live Cellar clip “How Sweet” right now.
How many Emmys has Matt Koff been nominated for?
Seven, with one win in 2015 for his writing on The Daily Show.
