Exclusive | Mary Houlihan wants people to stop screaming about politics and start joking instead. Get tickets

Comedy Central really had a lasting impact on kids in the early 2000s.Case in point, look at comedian Mary Houlihan.20 years before she became a touring act, daring comedy journalist and popular podcaster, she spent her middle school afternoons watching “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.”“He would have macho, blue collar comedians debating through jokes with lefty anti-war comedians and I watched it as a comfort show,” Houlihan told The Post in an exclusive interview.And, now, she’s reimagining Quinn’s roundtable for the 2020s.Houlihan’s “Rough Crowd” — which she jokingly calls a shameless rip-off of “Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn” — brings together comics from both sides of the aisle to hash things out in today’s fraught political climate.“In the current state of politics, I think, ‘oh my God, we need something like this’‘ because comedians are getting so separate from one another.If someone has different politics than me but can be funny and kind in expressing their point of view, that’s great and a recipe for comedy.

If you liked the comedians on ‘Opie and Anthony’ in the early 2000s, you’re going to like what we’re doing.”Next up, Houlihan is bringing her fresh series to NYC’s Caveat on Sunday, Aug.30 with some of the City’s funniest comedians and bringing a club crowd sensibility to an alternative space.“Dina Hashem is great, Houlihan noted.

“She’s from New Jersey, she’s Muslim, does jokes about both political parties, says harsh truths and isn’t afraid of people being like ‘how can you say that about the Democrats?’ I think that’s cool.”“Sean Donnelly, he’s an Irish-American bloke from the New York metro area.Much like myself, so I love people like that,” Houlihan smiled.

“And he just looks like a regular white guy.He looks like he could work for Long Island Railroad and I think a conservative person would probably go up to him and say ‘Hey, buddy, you and I agree on this.

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