The comedian just released a new special, ‘Not Smart Enough’
By Nick A. Zaino III Globe correspondent Published Jan. 28, 2026
Janet McNamara is correct. And she is sure that if you watch her new special, “Not Smart Enough,” or go see her live at Goofs Comedy Club for the sold out special/album release party, you will agree.
What is she right about? A lot of things, actually. “Sex doesn’t matter,” she said, echoing a bit from the special in a Zoom interview. “Why are people doing that? Why are you going out till four o’clock in the morning? Just, it’s gross. People make no sense, and I’m here to tell people that 99 percent of everyone is wrong, and I’m the one that’s right.”
At first glance, McNamara might not seem like a confrontational person. In a puffy vest and long-sleeved T-shirt, she could be anyone you pass at the grocery store. But when she gets onstage to tell jokes, her stance changes. Her right hand goes up like she’s expecting to get rushed. She doesn’t move much while she’s delivering her material, and her expression doesn’t change much, except when her smile lets you know she’s in on the joke. But she leans into the audience, challenging them with the flatness of a statement.
“I’m not gay,” she says in the special. “I’m not. I haven’t told my family yet. It’s just an awkward conversation to be like, hey, mom, I’m not gay. I just like to dress comfortably.”
McNamara started pursuing stand-up comedy in 2010 after an in-person “American Idol” audition she did for the judges on a lark made it to air. She wanted to find a way to keep performing.
Part of what draws her to stand-up is the idea of interacting with a crowd and trying to get them on her side. “Even if you have a really far out idea, you could get people to agree with you,” she said. “If I wrote an essay trying to convince people of some of these things, they wouldn’t [see] it. But because you’re looking into the eye and you’re saying it with a straight face, I can convince people that I’m right and they’re wrong.”
“Not Smart Enough” was released last week through Eugene Mirman’s Pretty Good Friends label and is available on YouTube. Mirman has known McNamara for years, and appreciates her frankness onstage, and her skills as a writer. “She is an incredible jokesmith,” he said. “Each sentence is so well structured with the last. And yes, it has this very Boston-y, acerbic quality. But at the same time, it is very perfectly structured.”
The DNA of McNamara’s act has been the same from the beginning — the joke writing ability, the unflinching self-examination. But something has clicked for her in the past couple of years. True to form, when this improvement is mentioned, her first instinct is to challenge it. “In my opinion, I’ve always been good,” she said. “People just had to jump on the wagon.”
But she does acknowledge that after the COVID-19 lockdown, she came out strong. Part of this was a shuffling of the scene, as some of the more established bookers departed and a new generation took over at the various comedy venues. “Boston has a thing where you kind of have to wait in line a little bit, and when COVID ended, the line kind of went away, in that it was a whole new set of bookers, a whole new set of gatekeepers,” McNamara said. “It only mattered where you were in that moment.”
When the clubs opened up again, McNamara pushed harder, and found she was getting booked more, and started headlining more. She had already changed her stance, leaving the mic in the stand and keeping her right foot in front of her left foot, which she says she got from watching local comic Mike Whitman. “That actually made a difference. When I say a punch line, I lean forward,” she said. “As a comic that just stands there, it’s hard to show energy when you just stand there with the mic in your hand.”
She also found herself naturally tightening up bits onstage after the clubs had closed for lockdown just because she had to try to remember it all over again. Many of the jokes and premises are the same, but are streamlined. “I fine-tuned a lot when I had to rewrite my entire set because I forgot most of it,” she said.
Part of what has stayed the same is McNamara’s willingness to talk about uncomfortable and deeply personal subjects: her father’s death, the fact she has been tested for autism twice without being diagnosed, and that people keep telling her they think she might be autistic. She has found she can share these things and still protect herself. “It’s a balance of not being so vulnerable that I regret it,” she said.
She says the routines are 99 percent true, if a bit condensed for the sake of the joke. But the toughest issues are far enough in her past to allow her the distance and perspective to address them with a lighter touch through stand-up.
“It’s hard, because time plus tragedy equals funny,” she said, “and you can’t really write a joke about something until you’re no longer emotionally vulnerable about it, or at least I can’t. It took me close to 10 years to write a joke about my dad dying. It took me 10 years to write a joke about having a diagnosis. It takes a long time, at least for me, because it’s hard, because if you’re talking about something that’s very vulnerable, the last thing you want is the audience to be scared for you, or the audience to feel bad for you. You have to be completely 100 percent OK with it.”
There are changes afoot for McNamara, something she views with some trepidation. She has a job as an accountant that she likes (she says it’s like getting to do a puzzle every day). She has lived in the same apartment for 20 years, the first apartment she moved into after leaving home in Randolph. This summer, she plans to move to New York or Los Angeles and go full time as a comedian. She is hoping the special and the album provide her some momentum as she makes the commitment to comedy.
“It got to the point where I’m like, I’m 40,” she said. “What am I doing with my life? I can sit in a cubicle all day and headline local shows and open for local headliners. But at some point, you just kind of had to pull the trigger and do something.”
A peek at “Not Smart Enough”
While the full special is available on YouTube, here’s a look at a couple of jokes from McNamara’s routine:
“My grandmother told me I was beautiful the other day. She was sweet. She was like, ‘Janet, you’re so beautiful, imagine what would happen if you wore makeup and you didn’t dress so homely.’ I was like, ‘I think I’m going to stick with being beautiful.’”
“My favorite thing in the world, is I love stopping for people at crosswalks. I like the power of being like, ‘I could kill you.’ And if they were jaywalking, I’d get away with it.”
“My dad died a couple of years ago. Which is sad, I guess. I still like to text him. Or at least, I like to text the guy who has his number now. And I’ll be like, ‘Hey, dad.’ And the guy’s like, ‘I’m not your dad.’ And that’s just what my dad used to say. So it’s like he’s here.”
“I’m over trying to look hot. It’s easy. You just have to have a skin care routine. I’m done. It’s like, my whole life, being attractive, you make more money, you’re more successful if you’re attractive. And there was this study in the ’90s with babies where babies, they smile more if it’s an attractive person in front of them. And it’s supposed to show that being attractive is important. And I’m like, why are we listening to babies? Why are we getting our social values from babies? That’s stupid.”
NOT SMART ENOUGH: Janet McNamara and Friends
With Janet McNamara, Eugene Mirman, Jocelyn Bailey, Ryan Howe, Emily Ruskowski, Isabel Thurston, and Katie Arroyo. Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m. at Goofs Comedy Club. Tickets: $28-$34. www.goofscomedy.com