ESPN has had a rough week, PR-wise, what with the guy having sex with the young woman who's not his wife, and the other guy making a woefully unfunny joke about a race-car driver based loosely on his ethnic heritage, so they're really due for something to remind us that they're great at delivering us sports information and also quite funny in doing so. Cue Kenny Mayne! Mayne has always been one of my favorite ESPN guys (and the fact that I used to write for the newspaper in Federal Way, Wash., from whence he came, has nothing to do with it). Today marked the debut of season three of Mayne Street, the anchor/reporter's online series. You can watch season one of Mayne Street here; or season two here.
Comedians Alison Becker, Aubrey Plaza and Ben Schwartz have been part of Mayne's crew, though none of them are in the debut, which finds Mayne paying a visit to another guy with sports/media things in common with the blog, Bill Simmons. I've read The Sports Guy's columns for years, but this probably isn't the best time to depict yourself as a faker who has bikini-clad women gratuitously make out and wrestle at your fake mansion, is it? Anyhow. Timing! Who's with me? Roll the clip!
I noted that legendary comedy producer Lorne Michaels had plenty to smile about last weekend during the Creative Arts Emmy awards ceremony, and during Sunday night, multiple Primetime Emmy winners showed Michaels love on the live TV.
Two of those winners, in fact, were brought back from last weekend's ceremony to deliver additional acceptance speeches. But when those people are Tina Fey and Justin Timberlake, I suppose that's a nod to TV viewers? Fey and Timberlake had won the guest actress and actor awards in a comedy series for their turns on last season's Saturday Night Live. Timberlake pulled the predictable parody of Kanye West (twas ok), whereas Fey trumped him with this thanks to Michaels: "I wouldn't be here tonight if it wasn't for Lorne Michaels. Justin still would be very famous and very rich. But I would not be here. So thank you, Lorne Michaels." Timberlake followed up, saying: "You guys at SNL are the best. Thank you for letting me come and make a fool of myself as much as I am willing to do. So thank you for this. This was a huge surprise." Fey later got in a dig at her network's decision to put Jay Leno in primetime; while accepting another trophy for 30 Rock as repeat winner of best comedy series, she said NBC was kind enough to keep 30 Rock on even though it costs more to produce than a talk show.
Fey did not repeat as best actress, however, as that honor went to Toni Collette for Showtime's The United States of Tara. Although Sarah Silverman stole that portion of the show with her deadpan use of a fake mustache.
Alec Baldwin, in his repeat win for best actor for 30 Rock, made a joke about wanting to trade his Emmy to look like presenter Rob Lowe, then decidated his trophy "Lorne Michaels, who is the greatest boss you could ever have, and who has believed in me for all these years, and I love you, Lorne."
In the supporting categories for comedy acting, wins went to Jon Cryer (Two and a Half Men) and Kristin Chenoweth (Pushing Daisies). Cryer got ribbed about his win during the broadcast by host Neil Patrick Harris, who also was nominated in the category. NPH, for his part, did a bang-up job as host, as multiple others (Jon Stewart among them) stopped to point out in their acceptance speeches. Not everything worked (we're looking at you, best seat in the house recurring bit). The opening number was bright and punchy. Here's the official video of it!
Was it a counterpoint to Hugh Jackman's opening musical ode to the Academy Awards? Regardless, the latter won an Emmy, which meant statues for Ben Schwartz (pictured here back at his seat by Parks and Recreation's Aubrey Plaza), along with Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, John Kimbrough and William Ross (group photo TwitPic here).
We've got ourselves a big Monday here, which means it's time to catch up on what's been happening in comedy and see if we missed anything. First up, what funny things from comedians have I posted recently over on The Laugh Track?
Did you know that The Comedy Store in Hollywood fielded its own basketball team in 1978, and that David Letterman, JJ Walker, John Witherspoon, Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen played on it. Want to see what that looked like? Is that why they went on strike, again?
Lisa Lampanelli got engaged (to a white guy!), while Chelsea Handler reportedly broke up with her boyfriend (who's also her boss). Yikes and double yikes!
Sunda Croonquist got a lot of "free" publicity by having her mother-in-law sue her over her jokes, while Eddie Izzard is earning his media attention by running more than a marathon a day around the United Kingdom. Watch clips from both!
But that's not all. There was also some comedy in the news. Such as, for instance, this, that and the other thing:
TIME magazine interviewed David Cross about his new book, but really seemed more interested in trying to get a scoop about an Arrested Development movie. In related news, they had an article last week about comedians trying to make Obama jokes. The weird thing about that story is that the author, Richard Zoglin (who just wrote a book about stand-up in the 1970s), wants us to believe that political comedy disappeared in the 1980s and only came back on the scene thanks to George W. Bush. Did he forget about Bill Clinton? Or Dan Quayle? Really?!?
Now that I'm showcasing funny videos and pictures and such over at The Laugh Track, you'd think I'd go ahead and find some way to tell you about them over here. Without further hesitation...
Ben Schwartz got rejected by Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin, but it was all in good fun to promote the ESPYs for ESPN. And that reminded me of the uproarious time that was the "Worst. Heckle. Ever." show that Derrick Comedy and several other UCB players and improvisers subjected Schwartz to during last summer's Del Close Marathon. Congrats on your Emmy nominations, Ben!
The 40th anniversary of mankind landing on the Moon happened on Monday, and how did the Barely Political crew celebrate it? With a fake rap about a busty Moon girl. Music and lyrics from Mark Douglas.
Daniel Tosh's Tosh.0 last week featured a mashup of white girls impersonating Bill Cosby, which made me curious about other kids trying to be like Cos. Apparently, it's all about the pudding.
Derrick comedy has a laugh-out-loud hilarious, dark comedy movie on their hands, and if all things go well, soon enough, there will be a distribution deal for Mystery Team. How do I know this? I managed to get in on one of the intimate free screenings in New York City earlier this week, and talked to four-fifths of the team behind Mystery Team afterward (Dan Eckman, Meggie McFadden, DC Pierson and Dominic Dierkes -- Donald Glover was over in Long Island City being executive story editor on 30 Rock). Roll the clip!
As mentioned in the clip, Mystery Team debuted in January at the Sundance Film Festival to mostly positive reviews and buzz. Director/co-writer/editor Eckman said he managed to cut more than six minutes from the version Sundance audiences saw, getting the running time down to a leaner 98 minutes. "Watching it with an audience six times at Sundance really opened the whole thing up," Eckman told me.
If you haven't heard the buzz yet, let me fill you in. Donald Glover, DC Pierson and Dominic Dierkes play three high-schoolers who are still living off of their childhood "fame" as boy detectives who solved neighborhood mysteries a la Encyclopedia Brown. Glover's Jason is as animated as a Looney Tunes character with a propensity for disguises that rely on fake mustaches. Pierson's Duncan has memorized trivial trivia and thinks that makes him a boy genius when it just makes him a nerd. Dierkes' Charlie is a dumb jock without being a jock. They're 17, but still living as if they were 7. "No case too hard, no case too tough," reads the hand-painted sign outside Jason's house. And their mysteries are as tough as figuring out who stuck their fingers in an old lady's pie. Until a girl rings Jason's bell and asks him to solve the murder of her parents. The boys take the case and quickly find themselves in over their heads, literally and figuratively. Will they grow up and/or solve the case? Aubrey Plaza (NBC's Parks & Recreation) plays the other orphaned sister. Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live) shows up every so often as a grocery store cashier who still idolizes the Mystery Team. And there are plenty of other great comedian cameos and supporting roles with an emphasis on the UCB: Tom Shillue, Matt Walsh, Kay Cannon, Neil Casey, Jon Daly, Will Hines, Ellie Kemper, Anthony King, John Lutz, Ben Schwartz, Kevin Brown and Robbie Sublett among them.
Only now unwinding from my second tour through the Upright Citizen Brigade's Del Close Marathon, which ended Sunday night (though starting the tour after an all-nighter to Washington, D.C., and back probably contributed to the fatigue on my end), and wished, as I did last summer, that I had gotten to see more of the 150+ improv and variety shows that happened during DCM10. At least two video cameras captured some of the highlights, which I expect to see online one of these days at UCBComedy.
The Marathon is crazy for improvisers and comedy fans alike, with shows running almost continuously (save for a couple of breaks to clean the theaters) at the UCB home in Chelsea and three nearby theaters from Friday afternoon to Sunday night. Comedians come from all over the country to participate, and even then, to fill all of those hours, the Marathon's programmers schedule some completely off-the-wall shows. I cannot speak for the daytime shows from last weekend, but during the primetime and late-night hours, the atmosphere -- hot, sweaty and reeking of alcoholic sweat -- really favors the louder, crazier uptempo shows over the improv groups that actually try best to honor Del Close and his Harold long-form. It's not a fault of the performers. But after you've seen "Gary Busey" prove he's the smartest expert in the universe, it's hard to pay close attention to all that's going on in the Scramble. And the Marathon peaks at 2:30 a.m. Sunday during the half-hour lunacy that is Match Game 76, and when Horatio Sanz as Heath Ledger's Joker launches a smoke bomb, well, even a troupe hoping to parody Close has no chance. I spent my entire DCM10 at the UCB (sorry, big-time shows at the FIT, but maybe we'll meet again in 2009), and the best shows I saw over the weekend were strong in concept, structure and execution.
James Adomian as "Gary Busey" during The Smartest Panel of Experts in the Universe Ever. Photo by Keith Huang
Growing up with the Harlem Globetrotters, you sometimes wondered what it must be like being a member of the opposition team, the Washington Generals. What does that have to do with anything? Well, comedian Ben Schwartz finally (after seven months) unveils episode four of his Webby-nominated (for best writing, individual short) series, Bronx World Travelers. In today's episode, Schwartz gets life and basketball lessons from a street legend, played by Bobby Moynihan. Enjoy!
Watching the March Madness today on the TV and seeing if my Final Four brackets hold up, and thinking about these ESPN Bracketologists videos that feature my friends, comedians Dave Hill and Ben Schwartz. Enjoy!
Other videos, from future friends(?) Bobby Moynihan and Eugene Cordero, after the jump.
Valentine's Day is today, and in the grand tradition of parallel thinking in comedy, several videos are ready for your viewing pleasure to get through this "holiday," no matter your relationship status. Let's take a look.
The Onion News Network might be thought as callous for going after lonely women, but they always manage to turn a topic on its head. And quite professionally, too. It's almost like a real local TV news report. Which is the point of this parody production.
Funny or Die devotes the top half of its main page to Valentine's Day vids. Of course, this site's niche is the roster of celebrity cohorts, so they invariably go to that well again today.
