The world’s on fire — and John McIntire is here to make everyone laugh about it.
Since 2007, McIntire has been hosting a comedy talk show with a panel of guests — often local political figures, sometimes comedians. The former host of PCNC’s “Night Talk” and KDKA radio voice has performed the show under a number of names and at a variety of venues, including Brillobox in Bloomfield and Arcade Comedy Theater Downtown. This Saturday, he will bring his talk show, “World’s On Fire,” to The Oaks Theater in Oakmont.
“People who come to my shows at other places always like The Oaks the best,” McIntire said.
Saturday night’s show is also special because it’s dedicated to a local legend and a friend of McIntire’s, the recently deceased Dr. Cyril Wecht.
Wecht — who passed away on May 13 — was a world-renowned forensic pathologist who served as Allegheny County coroner and commissioner at various points through his career. He was also known for his theories and work on numerous famous deaths.
Those events were the subject of McIntire and Wecht’s “Pathological Discussions” shows. For the past several years, the two of them would come out onstage to have conversations about some of recent history’s most controversial cases.
“JFK, Robert F. Kennedy, Chappaquiddick with Teddy Kennedy … he was a consultant on the O.J. (Simpson) case, JonBenet Ramsey and Kurt Cobain,” McIntire said of the frequent subjects of their discussions.
McIntire first met Wecht on the PCNC show “Night Talk,” which he hosted. When his live comedy talk show came into being, Wecht was a guest more than a dozen times.
“I always marveled at that because I thought, ‘there’s nothing in it for you, it’s not going to raise your stature, you’re already a god and you’re slumming it on this show.’ I didn’t pay people. God bless him, among many other things, he was a ham who liked to perform and be funny in front of people,” McIntire recalled.
When the “chronically underemployed” McIntire had the idea for their collaborative conversational show, Wecht was — surprisingly, according to McIntire — on board.
“It was very successful,” he said. “He sold out most of the shows, except shortly after covid, when people were afraid to go out.”
They brought “Pathological Discussions” to The Oaks, as well as The Lamp Theatre in Irwin, the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center in Midland, Pa., and even out of state. “Once we went to North Tonawanda, N.Y., and he got 500 people, and I didn’t even know people knew who Cyril Wecht was in North Tonawanda, N.Y.,” McIntire said.
In addition to being a stellar stage partner, Wecht was a good friend, McIntire said. “If we had two shows, he always bought dinner in between. (He was) just a hugely generous human. … He was always gracious and friendly and nice to me.”
“I thought it was ironic, he didn’t suffer fools gladly, and yet he spent a lot of time with me,” he joked.
Saturday night’s “World’s On Fire” talk show will involve some reminiscing about Wecht. McIntire’s guests will include former Pennsylvania House minority whip Mike Veon, former Senator Arlen Specter staffer and radio host Doug Saltzman and Pittsburgh comedian Chrissie Costa.
“Doug used to work for Arlen Specter who, before he was a senator, wrote the single bullet theory,” McIntire explained, referring to a theory posed by the former senator while he worked with the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy — a theory of which Wecht was famously skeptical.
“Mike knew Cyril for many many years because they were both involved in Democratic politics. And Chrissie Costa, oddly enough, is not at all political, but I thought I’d throw her in because she’s funny,” McIntire said.
Beyond these guest interviews, Saturday’s audience has even more to look forward to. “Just a lot of political humor. A former president might come up often,” McIntire said.
Comedy talk show “World’s On Fire” will take place at 8 p.m. (doors at 7 p.m.) this Saturday at The Oaks Theater in Oakmont. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at theoakstheater.com.
Alexis Papalia is a TribLive staff writer. She can be reached at apapalia@triblive.com.