Breaking Bread with Tom Papa · Food & Beverage · October 2026
Tom Papa suggests there isn't much money in the touring clown-comedy life Zucker has built. Zucker agrees, and describes landing a lucrative deal and then immediately spending it on flying a friend across the world to join the show, to the fury of his producer.
Don't embarrass me like this.
At least, right? Of course. You know, you don't
do, you don't do a clown to make money. It's really hard. We always joke, like every pile of money I get, it gets thrown into the incinerator to fully, you know, keep the train going. And we are always laying the tracks as the train is barreling down the road. Yeah. And, you know, even my bless our new producer, Maya, who I've been hiring to work with us, like, will get like a good lucrative deal. I'm like, well, okay, we've done it. But it would be fun if Tom came along. And I know it doesn't make sense logistically. He's across the world, but he's a good hang. So fuck it, bring him down. And she's like, it is infuriating to work with you. It's beautiful to see how much you love your friends and how much you love to do this. But I'm like, I'm kind of addicted to not making money. What does
that do for you?
Ah, you know, causes me a lot of stress. It does. No, is it more stress
than it is freedom?