the comic's comic

What happened to Comic Relief?

Almost forgot to weigh in on last weekend's other talked-about comedy show, the ballyhooed return of Comic Relief. Broadcast live from Las Vegas and New Orleans on HBO (with a slight delay on TBS), the show looked and sounded all of its 20 years. Robin Williams had nothing new to offer. Whoopi Goldberg had even less. Billy Crystal gamely tried to keep a smile on his face. And the rest of the comics…snooze.

Emeril "Fall River, Mass." Lagasse was introduced as "Mr. New Orleans." That's funny not just because it's literally wrong, but also because Emeril skipped out on the Big Easy in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina. But back to the night of no laughs. Sure, helping New Orleans is serious business, but the name of the show was Comic Relief, and none of the early stand-ups (Ray Romano, Rosie O'Donnell, Bill Maher) got the crowd going. When the actors from Desperate Housewives seem funny, the show needs saving. George Lopez fared OK with timely jokes about immigration. He was followed by Louie Anderson and Susie Essman, a lame bit with the Entourage boys, and eventually, 90 minutes in, D.L. Hughley arrived onstage prepared and raring to go into his stand-up routine. Dane Cook delivered appropriate laughs. Sarah Silverman did her thing, but by this point, it was all I could do to continue watching. If you're going to bill a show as special, you better darn well put on a special show. Very little of the comedy seemed to fit that description. At least on awards shows, they try to dress it up.

What happened here? Or are my memories of the Comic Relief shows from the 1980s and 1990s tainted by nostalgia?

Judah Friedlander, world champion

Judah Friedlander is absurd. Judah Friedlander also thrives on crowd work. Combine the two and you get a stand-up comedy show that goes beyond any other show. Just ask Judah. He'll tell you. That's why he wears the World Champion yellow T-shirt with ballcap printed in Spanish, "just in case English isn't your first language." Watch a clip, and we'll get going with the interview after that.

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Friedlander plays a writer on NBC's sitcom, 30 Rock. We talked on Wednesday night at the Comedy Cellar in NYC, just before his show made the switch to Thursday nights, up against CSI and Grey's Anatomy. Friedlander said he remains hopeful for the show's long-term success. "At least we're on an all-comedy night. Yeah, I hope people watch. Everyone who watches it seems to like it, so I hope people watch."

Was hearing about the NBC "promotion" anything like finding out you got a movie role, and then finding out it's for a Project Greenlight movie: Feast? Friedlander said no. "That got released almost two years after we started making it, which sucks. But that happens with a lot of movies…Have you seen it? It's f—ing good. Everybody says it's easily the best Project Greenlight movie. I thought it was f—ing great. I f—ing loved it. Yeah, the show twisted some s— around, but for the most part they got the vibe right…I loved doing the movie. I love horror movies. I had so much f—ing fun doing it. And I think it's good. I think it's really funny."

Has 30 Rock changed the way crowds react to you yet? "I get recognized form a lot of different things, but yeah, that's happening more and more." Does it make it easier onstage? "My stand-up is the same. It doesn't change. Yeah….stand-up is great….more people may want to book me, more people may want to see me, but I don't know. I still probably get recognized the most from Meet the Parents and from the Dave Matthews Band video I did, walking around hugging everybody."

But that doesn't really showcase your comedy, does it?
"Meet the Parents does a little, I guess. But none of these TV shows, I think, or movies, show nearly what I can do on stand-up. The stand-up I do I think is much funnier, is much more me, much more twisted or hardcore or out there than what's on the shows and movies. In the movies and stuff, TV shows, even if I'm looking like me, I'm really held back a lot, because network there's so many, not only words you can't say but subject matters you can't talk about and s–t like that….A lot of my act is riffing the crowd and making stuff up on the spot, and they don't let you do that on TV, or movies."

Maybe you should get hooked up with those Christopher Guest movies. "I did a Curb Your Enthusiasm…that was fun. But even that I'm playing a different character. I'm not myself on that."

He said VH1 also calls upon him to do things that aren't really him. "I do that show once in a while, Best Week Ever, but I don't do any pop culture stuff. I might have one pop culture joke in a 45-minute set."

So do you agree with Mitch Hedberg's bit about comics in Hollywood always getting asked to do anything but stand-up? "Yeah. I got into stand-up to do stand-up. Doing 30 Rock has been good, get your name and face out there more, get some exposure. And I like the people I work with. Getting to work with Tina Fey is really cool, and (Alec) Baldwin. Tracy (Morgan) I've known for years so working with him is great, but I've known him for like 12 years. One thing that's cool about this show is I'm getting exposed to the whole sketch comedy world, improv/sketch comedy world, because that's where Tina and a lot of the writers and other cast members come from on that show. So that's cool."

Is that something you want to explore more?
"No. I mean, I do improv a lot in movies and acting, and I like doing that. But I'm not going to form a f—ing sketch group or anything. (laughs) Stand-up is my favorite thing to do. I've been doing it for 17 years and, some people think I did TV and movies first and now I'm just doing stand-up to make some money or something. Stand-up has always been my main thing, but I've hardly gotten any exposure from it."

So what do you hope to do with your exposure?
"Well, just keep doing stand-up. Keep getting better…CDs. I want to do a stand-up concert tour. Just keep doing it. Keep moving forward. It's the most fun for me. Most creative outlet for me. You don't have to wake up at 5 a.m. to do it."

Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, For Your Consideration

Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy’s new movie, For Your Consideration, really goes after the movie publicity process (especially on TV interviewers). Naturally, I led off by pointing out how they’d launched a pre-emptive strike against the media, and in the process, me. Guest laughed. That was a good sign. While Levy tends to do movie press more often, this was Guest’s first time through the media mill in quite some time. Seeing the two of them in a Ritz-Carlton room was daunting. But not that daunting.

So onto the regular questioning, then, shall we? First off, the production notes note that this film had more of a script than previous films by Guest and Levy (see Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind). Was that by design?

Guest: “What is different is that this is done in a non-documentary format. This is done as a narrative so it goes from scene to scene. And that was a deliberate choice that we made.”

Having the same main cast or troupe return again, does that make the improv any easier or more comfortable?

Levy: “Well, it’s, I think it’s about, we really look forward to seeing each other every three years and working on a project. Together. In terms of actually doing it, this kind of work is fun, and doing it with these people is fun. The comfort factor, I think, has been pretty much the same since the first film. It’s not easier to work with these people. It always was kind of easy. Because they’re good at what they do. But it really is a joy to work in this kind of way, in this improvisational style with these people, so the whole experience is comfortable. But it always has been.

Guest: “For this kind of work. And other people aren’t really doing this that much, but I think for this kind of work, you can do this or you can’t. You can’t go to a night school and learn how to improvise. It just doesn’t happen. They have thousands of courses in this and teachers teach it, but to be honest, you know, it’s possible to get more proficient at it, but you can tell in 10 seconds if someone can improvise.”

I guess I meant, in playing off each other. Does it get easier, then, to interact with people within the troupe from working together so much over the years?

Guest: “No, it’s the same. If you have five of these people come into a room, you just turn on the switch and it happens. You can just do it. You can do it 24 hours a day. You could just do it until you dropped, basically. Its just, it would be like getting musicians in a room that can play, that can play well, you can sit down and you can play together, you can just do it. It doesn’t change really. You’re playing a different character, but you can do it.”

Both of you won Emmys early in your careers. Going through that experience, does it make it easier to deal with press speculation or bloggers now?

Chelsea Handler

I was impressed Saturday night by how much people love Chelsea Handler. Apparently people really do watch the E! channel. She got loud ovations at the Comedy Connection in Boston during her intro both for her show on E! (which she hopes will return for a second season in 2007) and for her first book, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands. And they gave her a standing O when she finished her 9 p.m. show (albeit rather abruptly, as several tables still had or were getting drinks), and then stood in line for up to 45 minutes to meet her outside afterward. During the show, Handler proved she could combine bits from her E! show with topical humor and impressively worked the crowd.

But still, Chelsea Handler laughs off her fame. "That's ridiculous. I don't consider myself a celebrity," she said. Being mentioned as an attendee at Ivanka Trump's birthday party by People magazine? Even more ridiculous. "First, off, I wasn't even at that party for her. I was just at Pure," Handler said. "It just goes to show how many celebrities were there. I was in a private booth with a large black man." Did she join in with the Pussycat Dolls, who have a residence at Pure? "I can't dance or sing. Which I've proven time and time again on television. So no, I didn't dance with them. But they did come over and say hello to me, so I must've had something going on. That night I was getting a lot of R-E-S-P-E-C-T." Handler also has produced a few comedy segments for The Tonight Show, but she didn't really think it showed her off in the best light. "It's a totally different audience, a middle America audience," she said. "They really want you to not be edgy, to be vanilla, to appeal to all of America. It was a great spring board for me, but I want to stay true to what I was doing on E!. I just don't see myself — I'm not really embarrassed to say a lot of things, and there (NBC) they monitor everything you say. E! really lets you get away with a lot of stuff and I really appreciate that."

This was Handler's first time performing in Boston. "My parents have a house in the Vineyard, but I haven't been to Boston. I used to have friends who went to B.U., but I probably haven't been in about six or seven years, so this will be the first time I performed there." Anything else you want folks to know, Chelsea? "Just that I'm a Picses."

Anthony Clark, post-Last Comic Standing

Anthony Clark used to be a regular New Year's Eve fixture at the Comedy Connection in Boston (NOTE: This year's NYE slot is going to none other than ANDREW DICE CLAY!!??!?!?!?). Anyhow. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, time to let Clark get some things off his chest.

Clark wasn't in the best of moods when he called. "One of my friends got rolled in San Diego," he said. "His face looks like hamburger. He's going to be OK, but he shouldn't be going to 15 bars in three hours in a shadow outfit." Shadow outfit? Oh, right. It was the weekend before Halloween. Was Clark going to play dress up? "No. I hate Halloween. It's a nightmare. The traffic here in Hollywood is terrible. You can't go anywhere. People are throwing eggs…I like Thanksgiving. When you eat. Football, alcohol and food. Now that's a holiday."

What about the Boston New Year's Eve Connection gigs? He said he loved the money, but is OK without it, just being back on the road in his return to his stand-up roots. "I've been incredibly fortunate to have a career. I've done 12 movies. I've been on Broadway in a Tony Award-winning play…Grapes of Wrath, with Gary Sinese…sitcoms…also stand-up. It always seems like there's something out there to do. Each one of those are very different."

"I think I love stand-up because the reaction is immediate. There's no director. There's no writer. No producer. There's just you. You just get out there and vent. I don't know why people think I'm funny. But I'm glad they do. I don't want to have a real job. I just want to hang out."

He then started talking about a previous phone interview he'd had, which got him reminiscing about his days at Emerson College. He singled out Crossroads bar on Beacon Street. "I think they should name it after me, because I basically built it. I gave them so much money."

How'd he like reuniting with other Emerson comics at the Boston Comedy Festival in September? "It's amazing the people that school has put out, for such a small, little eclectic city school," he said. "Even behind the scenes. Max Mutchnick put on my first sitcom, Boston Common. Kevin Bright…" I told him Bright is back this semester teaching and working with students on TV projects. "Oh, that's great!" Clark added: "You feel like you owe the school back a little."

About his start in comedy: "I started lke my sophomore, junior year. I was in This Is Pathetic, one of the student groups. One of the guys in the group, David Cross…David was one of my best friends in college. We were in the same comedy group together. I went down to Atlanta to do summerstock between years…David was doing stand-up, and he said you've got to do this…The first time I went up was at the Punchline in Atlanta and the reaction was incredible. I was like, finally I get to be good at something. Because I was not a great athlete. I wanted to be. (fake sobs) I wanted to be so good. But when you finally discover that you're naturally talented at something…"

He talks about how people think doing comedy is crazy, and yet it seems natural and easy to him. I describe how some people tell me they could never be writers. "I think writing is one of the hardest, most insane things to do. I can write a joke. I can tag a 45-minute, hour set together, but to put down a sitcom…I just sit until blood drops down my head. The only thing that's worse is algebra." He gets off on a tangent, wondering why we ever needed to learn algebra. Well…if you're leaving Los Angeles by plane for a show in Dallas, and your opening act is arriving from New York by train, what time should you both leave to arrive at the same time? Right. Never mind. I suggested that Clark dress up for Halloween as an algebra problem. "This year, I'm going to dress as a fly and wear a sign that says 'Will work for s—.' Either that or Harry Potter. I haven't gotten my act together yet."

Back to Emerson for a bit. "It was great coming back. I love the president, seeing Denis (Leary) and Steven (Wright) and Eddie Brill. It's such a small school that it's like coming back to high school. We all root for each other's success. It's like a homecoming."

I guess a Last Comic Standing reunion doesn't feel that way, telling him he looked so unhappy hosting the NBC show this summer. "I'm not doing it again," he said. "I really shouldn't say anything bad about it in the press…It was not fun. I was basically talked into it. But no." Not again. "That's embarrassing for me. I don't want to be grouped into Regis Philbin and Tom whats-his-name, Dancing with the douche?" But they make tons of money and are on hit shows, I counter. "I'd rather retire, not do anything than be perceived as that guy. It's so cheesy. Dancing with the…They should have one called F— The Stars. You can pick which one you want to be with, and that's a win-win situation at that point. Everyone wins."

"Yes, Dear was on for six years. I'm very proud of that. I know it wasn't a critics favorite by any means, but we had 13 million people watching it and we all had a New England base…(he notes how all of his
co-stars grew up around Boston)…It was wonderful working with those guys for six years. You become tight. We were a family and they all have kids, except me and Liza, because we're the tragic hags." The perks of being on CBS, though, were great, he said. "And I got to see five Super Bowls and five Final Fours, so thank you, CBS!"

What's next? "I don't know what I want to do right now," he said. "I'm going to Australia for three weeks to do a miniseries for NBC. As far as I know, I won't be coming back to Last Comic Standing. Unless they sue me, and then I will be going back." He asks me about how I said he looked uncomfortable on the show. I repeat it. Yes, he looked like he didn't want to be there at all. "I was miserable….but I did it. I felt like it had the best ratings it ever had. So I felt good about it."

Does he think it's a good thing for stand-up comedy? "I think it did good! A lot of these guys, they had no reputation before the show. And now guys like Josh (Blue) and Ty Barnett and Roz, they're headliners now!" Does he give them advice? "Will any of them have a huge movie career or sitcoms? I don't know. Not everyone can be me. And that's when they hang up."

What's inside the mind of Mencia, anyhow?

Carlos Mencia’s “The Punisher” tour comes to Boston tonight for two shows at the Orpheum, where he’ll undoubtedly learn that in this town, “beaner” means something else entirely. The comedian formerly known as Ned Holness and I talked on the phone on Monday morning. His Comedy Central show, Mind of Mencia, finished its second season this summer as the network’s second most-popular program, and will return for a third season early in 2007.

It was before 9 a.m. when the phone rang. Mencia was ready and rarin’ to start talking. “I’m wired,” he said. He tried watching the “Star Wars” trilogy (Eps. 4-6) and “Angel” but still couldn’t relax. “I was watching ‘Charmed,’ and I said I suck, watching ‘Charmed’ in the middle of the morning and paying attention to the storyline.” He kept getting distracted by Alyssa Milano. “Maybe because I remember her as a little girl, it makes me fell dirty.” OK. Let’s talk about something else. He just celebrated his 39th birthday on Oct. 22. How was that? His tour was in Dallas that night.

“My wife came out,” he said. “They stopped the show, came out with a cake, sang Happy Birthday, and my whole vibe was, you’re ruining the show! Get the f— off my stage! You’re building a set, you’ve got these peaks and valleys…and then, bababababa! What the f— are you guys doing to me! It was good besides that. I’m a great showman. So I just care about the show.”

Do you think your comedy will translate as well up in New England as it does in California and the Southwest? Do different crowds react differently? “I don’t think so. At this point, I’ve been through the Midwest and through the Pacific Northwest. It doesn’t change. It really doesn’t. It’s not, I don’t know, it’s not ethnocentric in that way…I would’ve thought, like you, in Dallas, so many Latinos that it wouldn’t change the show.” But he added: “The diversity of my audience is so stunning now. It’s amazing. It’s beyond crossover. I’ve actually become a voice for white America. I’m stunned myself. It just seems no one wants to say the things that are on peoples’ minds, and it just seems to be resonating even more in the white communities than in the minority communities, which is really weird. From blacks and Hispanics, they’ve been saying ‘Tell it like it is, and thank you.’ But whites have been saying, ‘THANK YOU! We’ve been waiting to laugh at that for years’…it’s just this thing that’s been hitting home.”

He hasn’t been to Boston in quite some time. “At the Comedy Connection seven, eight years ago, maybe longer. It was a long time ago. It’s tough, though. It really is.” He explained: “When you’re at the level I was, before the TV show (Mind of Mencia)…you’re working 48 weeks a year, working hard, 50 weeks if you’re stupid like me. You go to a comedy club every six months, so you’re talking 25 clubs.” Which means his circuit skipped Boston for years.

“But I’m having fun. I’m having a lot of fun, because I’m doing something I haven’t done before. It feels good to be talking about something. As a minority comedian, quote unquote, it’s interesting to look at a time, to look around and see it’s not great to be a white American anymore…because you don’t have the same social rights as everyone else.” Color me curious. Go on. “Two black people who speak ebonics can go do the same joke and speak that way to each other, and not get sued. You make a white guy do that and he’s going to go to sensitivity training…whoa! And there’s a lot of stuff like that going on…It’s an interesting time, and I’m a part of that. I’m a part of talking about that.”

He contributed a short story to the new book, I Killed: True Stories of the Road from America’s Top Comics, about a gig in which he feared he would’ve gotten shot by Snoop Dogg’s posse after a show, except for the fact that Shaq was in the audience and stuck up for him. Does he fear any crowds now that he’s famous? Not really. “Of the hate mail I get that I answer, they return going, I was just pissed off when I wrote that.”

What about the backlash from other comics? Joe Rogan, took on Mencia online last year. Rogan isn’t the only comic who doesn’t like Mencia’s brand of comedy. Instead of asking about Rogan specifically, I asked Mencia about why the few stand-ups who’ve gotten big in the wake of Dave Chappelle (Dane Cook, Larry the Cable Guy and Mencia) all have major backlash issues within the industry. “It’s no different from every other comic who’s made it successful,” Mencia maintained. “The comedians that comedians think are great are either dead or not very popular, or very old. People go, ‘Mitch Hedberg, man, he was the greatest ever.’ DEAD. Or ‘Richard Pryor was the greatest.’ DEAD. But it’s the same thing, when Chris Rock did his thing, he was blahblahblahed, and black comics said he sold out…It’s going to breed hate and contempt from comics because of the way we are. We are egocentric. It’s all me-me-me-me-me-me-me.”

He knows what other comics are saying about Larry the Cable Guy, “his fans are stupid and they talk about redneck s—.” And about himself: “He pretends he’s Mexican and the Mexicans don’t even like that. But he’s Honduran.”

Believe it or not, when I talk to Dane or talk to Larry, we don’t even talk about that stuff, because it’s so benign to us. It’s par for the course,” he said. “I’m not worried when other comics don’t like me. I’m worried when people don’t like me. I’m not worried when critics say your show sucks. I’m worried when people say your show sucks. They’re the ones who make your show. They’re the ones who pay to see you, who go to see your movies.”

Related: Carlos Mencia’s home page.