Marc Maron Will End WTF After 16 Years

Marc Maron has done the impossible: He made listening to the first ten minutes of an episode of WTF necessary. As longtime listeners of the podcast know, it often takes Maron about 20 minutes to get to the interview. He’ll recap his week, he’ll talk about his cats, he’ll talk about some upcoming shows and whatever else might be top of mind. These preambles separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of Maron’s fans, though, which is the wheat and which is the chaff in skipping in the intros versus listening to them remains to be seen. At the top of his June 2 episode, however, Maron gets right to the point and announces that later this year, WTF will end.

“I don’t know if you know this, or why would you, but this podcast — WTF — will turn 16 on September 1,” he shares. “Sixteen years, that’s a long time. It’s a long time to do anything. I’ve said recently that when I’m living it I don’t feel like time is passing by quickly, but all of a sudden you’re old and you realize you’ve been doing something a long time. No one knew what a podcast was. I was coming out of a horrendous divorce. We’ve decided that we had a great run, and now basically it’s time, folks. It’s time. WTF is coming to an end.” Maron goes on to explain that he and longtime producer Brendan McDonald came to that decision mutually after 16 years and more than 1,600 episodes. While there’s no specific end date in mind, Maron says the plan is to end “sometime in the fall,” presumably after that anniversary. In his speech at the top, Maron sounds confident, and he emphasizes to the listener, again and again, that this was his choice. He didn’t want to keep going as quality diminished. He wants to see where life will take him next. He knows that WTF has been, to some degree, monumental. “So many things happened because of setting up a mic in my garage with Brendan on the knobs,” he adds.

Maron promises a lot more guests, both old favorites and perhaps ones who put off going on who may now be convinced by the show’s ending to make an appearance. He also got to break the news to episode guest John Mulaney who gave him a passioned “Whoa!” Mulaney, a longtime fan who had listened to the podcast since its inception, repeatedly congratulated Maron on making the choice to go out on his own terms. “I’m shocked,” he responds. “But that’s awesome.” Before the two get into the weeds about Everybody’s Live, Maron adds, “I feel like I’ve partially done an amazing thing for culture but on the other side of that I feel like I’ve released the kraken.” Mulaney thinks for a moment, granting Maron a conciliatory “Well …” and, after a laugh, remarking, “I think the kraken was gonna come out no matter what.”