One slot on my Kansas comedy Mount Rushmore? KU grad and Golden Globes host Nikki Glaser

Nikki Glaser appears at the 83rd Golden Globes red carpet rollout at the Beverly Hilton on Jan. 8, 2026, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)

If you were to make your personal Mount Rushmore of Kansas comedians, who would be on it?

The first three answers for me come quickly.

First (and second), I nominate the pair of Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd for their Shawnee Mission West pedigree and rise to super stardom in movies and television.

For Sudeikis, maybe your favorites include his sketches on “Saturday Night Live,” his turn as a soccer coach on “Ted Lasso” or the absurdity of “Horrible Bosses.”

My playlist for Rudd starts with his big stepbrother role in “Clueless” and marches along with his characters in “40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”

Third, I am drafting University of Kansas grad Rob Riggle. The best goofy movies of the last few decades are on his resume: “The Hangover,” “The Other Guys,” and “Step Brothers.” (Unrelated to his bona fides, but helpful for my love of his work: We shared the same weekly waiting room outside our daughters’ dance class 15 years ago.)

My fourth slot in the Kansas comedy Mount Rushmore? 

Someone who has been making Hollywood headlines this week: Nikki Glaser.

Glaser, who graduated from KU after growing her standup career with jaunts to Kansas City, will host the Golden Globes for the second straight year Sunday. The broadcast, beginning at 7 p.m. on CBS, likely will kick off with the former Jayhawk delivering her monologue, which will likely toggle between roasting and toasting the biggest stars of movie and television.

Last year, she poked fun at …

• The movie “Wicked”: “Everyone loved ‘Wicked.’ My boyfriend loved ‘Wicked.’ My boyfriend’s boyfriend loved ‘Wicked.’ ”
• The mustache of actor Timothée Chalamet: “Can I just say you have the most gorgeous eyelashes … on your upper lip?”
• The endless scandals of Hollywood: “I predict five years from now, when you are watching old clips of this show on YouTube, you’ll see someone in one of the crowd shots, and you’ll go, ‘That was before they caught that guy!’ ”

While Glaser grew up and now lives in the St. Louis area, she transferred to KU after visiting during a Final Four basketball weekend.

“It was the best weekend of my life,” she has said.

Majoring in English, Glaser graduated in 2006 as a woman obsessed with standup comedy. She asked her parents to support her for eight years while she refined her act.

Aside from her material for the Golden Globes, Glaser’s comedy is often unfairly labeled as simply sexual. Netflix tags her 2019 special as “no filter” and “raunchy.” Strutting the stage in a short skirt and talking about oral sex certainly steers people to that conclusion.

In 2016, Glaser told the University Daily Kansan that her comedy aims to make young women feel more confident and positive about sex.

“I know those kids are watching porn, I know those kids are seeing violent films and tons of sex — so they know what’s happening, and I would like to give them a different perspective on that stuff,” Glaser said.

So we arrive at one of my least proud parenting moments: I hit play on her 2022 stand-up special one Friday night sitting beside my daughter. I think we lasted a few minutes uncomfortably squirming in our seats as Glaser described her sex life before I nervously flicked off the TV.

Glaser, it turns out, was more ready for that talk than our family.

Glaser punctured the pop culture bubble with her 2024 roast of Tom Brady, offering a parade of jokes that burst onto social media and made headlines. Those punchlines, which skewered Brady for leaving his family and being so hot, made viewers blush or sputter — or both.

However, Glaser’s recent interviews and most recent special has shown both vulnerability and deeper meaning beyond hooking up and sex.

In lengthy interviews during 2024, she talked about her experiences with depression, eating disorders, suicidal thinking and body image. She sent Terry Gross reeling away from the microphone laughing during an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air.”

Glaser explained how the atmosphere of the Kansas City and St. Louis comedy clubs encouraged dirty jokes. She told Gross how she would challenge herself to find out “how can you get groans? How can we offend the crowd? That was the goal, was just to say the grossest, most offensive thing.”

“So that was kind of my training ground,” she continued. “And obviously, it was more the way men talked offstage, I would say, than onstage, that made me think, ‘I just don’t want to be a part of this locker room talk where someone’s mocking me.’ ”

Glaser has also said that comedy can come from saying dark things that she shouldn’t say out loud.

“That’s always been the goal is just to mention the unmentionable,” Glaser told Gross. “And as I’ve dealt with, like, addictions and just problems with my mental health, it’s like — that’s always the answer to solving it, is admitting that there’s a problem. So it’s like, I kind of stumbled into comedy as a way to cope with all these feelings.”

Track the names of her comedy albums to see the recent change. From 2019’s “BANGIN’” to 2022’s “Good Clean Filth” to 2024’s “Someday You’ll Die.” The final special earned her 2024 Comedian of the Year from the New York Times humor columnist.

In a 2024 interview with Howard Stern, she talked about how her college years — both at KU and the University of Colorado — were times when she suffered the most psychologically, but also when she found a calling that saved her: standup comedy.

In her words, she “caught” anorexia as a teenager. Hoping to look thin for a date, she skipped all of her meals that day. Hearing from a friend that she looked great cemented the habit that would eventually threaten her life.

“The first time I did standup, I got off stage and I called my dad and I cried. We both cried,” she said. “They thought they were going to lose me. They had wrung their hands with it and given up because I wasn’t going to eat, and there was nothing they could really do with it. I was like, ‘I’ve gotta beat this because now I have something that I actually want to do and that I am good at. I have something to live for.’ ”

One of my favorite clips that I found while bouncing around the internet today on a Glaser tour was a 2019 appearance on KCTV’s “Better Kansas City.”

The production values are a lightyear away from the Golden Globes. Glaser sits on a comfy couch in an athleisure outfit with her hair pulled back in a casual ponytail. A gigantic, shiny leather chair holds the interviewer, who smiles as Glaser delivers these ambitious yet sarcastic, silly yet prophetic lines.

“I’m a really big deal,” Glaser said. “People might not know that. If you’re watching at home, like, I am going to be very famous very soon.
I’m already more famous than I ever planned on being, which is not that famous. But, like, now’s the time to see me because I’m about to blow up. … Things are about to happen for me in a bigger way.”

As a longtime fan, it’s gratifying seeing Glaser explode in popularity now — at a moment when she is not just sexual on stage but intimate, not just candid in interviews but emotional.

The Golden Globes will be a fascinating showcase for a comedian with Kansas connections who is at the peak of her power.

One last note: This four-person comedy hall of fame is mine alone. So, I know that I am leaving out great folks. Here are some honorable mentions:

• Del Close: A comedy innovator and mentor for many. I simply don’t know his work as well, despite his Manhattan, Kansas, roots.
• Bridget Everett: I simply adore this second Manhattan honorable mention, including her willingness to be interviewed by me.
• Mandy Patinkin: What a role in the “Princess Bride,” but the earnestness of his other work makes me see him as a dramatic actor.
• Heidi Gardner: She has star power galore, but her biggest Kansas connection is two years at KU. I gift her to Missouri, where she belongs.
• Terry Kiser: He starred in “Weekend at Bernie’s” and went to KU? That’s tempting, but can’t compete with the other filmographies.
• Eric Stonestreet: I struggled the most here. Stonestreet is Kansas through and through and starred on “Modern Family.” Wish Mount Rushmore had five presidents for his sake.

Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.