Josh Johnson is trying out bits on me in the back of a black Cadillac.

We're making conversation on the way from a  Daily Show  promotional event to his set at the New York Comedy Club in Midtown, and I can sense when small talk starts inching toward a punchline.

He asks how I like New York and then compares the Big Apple to that one childhood friend with a rough home life:  He's the first to help you out when you're in trouble, but then he'll hand you a cigarette and you're like,  Bro, we're 8.' 

Johnson is best known as the newest of six hosts of  The Daily Show,  where he began as a staff writer in 2017. He's vying for Emmy contention alongside Jon Stewart and co., and also for his music-themed HBO comedy special  Symphony,  which debuted in May.

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But most notable about the 36-year-old Louisiana-born comic is his prodigious output. Johnson releases nearly an hour of polished stand-up every Tuesday on YouTube - essentially a full-length special per week. His channel has racked up more than half a billion views. For three years straight, he's kept up a pace that bewilders the industry's leading comics.

 I don't even think what I'm doing would be advisable, necessarily,  Johnson tells me.  I see why people say,  You're leaving a lot on the table or giving it away for free.' But this is what I want to be doing, and it's pushed me to get better. 

Josh Johnson hosts  The Daily Show  Comedy Central

The car pulls up to the club, and Johnson heads to the green room. Ten minutes later, he takes the stage to fervent applause. He's ditched his T-shirt and coat for a gray zip-up hoodie and jeans - his uniform of sorts - and immediately jumps into jokes about the previous night's heated NBA Finals game.

 We almost got rid of a billionaire out of nowhere,  he says of Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado's courtside collision with Mike Bloomberg.  Everybody's always planning, hiring security. Who would have thought they would get themselves killed?  And of the Spurs' towering Victor Wembanyama:  Wemby looks exactly like  Nightmare Before Christmas.' 

Johnson's comedic style is 

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