the comic's comic

Brett Gelman's "Mr. Celebrity" guide to befriending celebrities

What if Brett Gelman's character, Sam, aka "Mr. Celebrity," went from telling you how to make friends with celebrities, to actually showing you how his techniques work successfully in real life? That's what you get in this short film on Funny or Die. Features appearances by Jon Hamm, Janeane Garofalo and Michael Cera. (Video includes a few profanities) Enjoy!

How to Make Friends with Celebrities - watch more funny videos

Pete Correale's "The Things We Do For Love"

First piece of mail received at my new HQ: A package containing the DVD for Pete Correale's new stand-up special, "The Things We Do For Love," which debuts tonight on Comedy Central. Ding, ding, ding! Tell the senders what they win: A fresh review. Wait. That's it? Yes. That's it. And here we go...

Pete Correale has an everyman's appeal. Married. Has a dog. Things are good, but maybe only because he tries so hard to avoid confrontations. He's just like you, right? Which explains how he gets through life and his relationship, whether it's building IKEA furniture together, or trying to keep up with other couples on double-dates, and especially in knowing the power of sharing gossip. Between bits about how he keeps his marriage running smoothly, Correale shares his observations about drinking, smoking, musical instruments (why does anyone play the recorder, anyhow?), and more.

Correale was supposed to get the chance to promote his special on Late Show with David Letterman last week, but he got bumped when an auto chairman's talk with Letterman went long. Personally, I'd rather hear observational comedy from someone like Correale about how the auto manufacturers screwed the pooch than listen to excuses from a CEO. Oh well. Correale told me his Letterman date was getting rescheduled -- too late to advance tonight's airing on Comedy Central. But I'll help spread the word. Here's a clip from the special/DVD, in which Correale talks about Christmas cards with dogs on them, and his own idea for one. Roll it!

More clips after the jump...

Dov Davidoff special tapes tonight in North Hollywood

Lots of unpacking and catching up to do on my end of the Internet, but wanted to let you know that if your end of the Internet happens to be in the Los Angeles area tonight, then you can catch a free taping of Dov Davidoff's newest stand-up special.

Davidoff will tape shows at 7 and 9 p.m. tonight at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, Calif. Details here.

TBS launching late-night stand-up series in November

TBS will use its inaugural partnership with Just For Laughs Chicago to launch a 10-episode late-night TV series devoted to showcasing up-and-coming stand-up comedians. Tim Meadows (SNL) will host The Very Funny Show, which will tape 30 comedians (or three per episode) at Zanies June 19-20 during JFL Chicago, broadcasting them weekly come November (paired somehow with the George Lopez offering? or maybe on the weekends against SNL and Wanda Sykes???).

Many of the stand-ups getting exposure in the initial run on TBS already have a TV credit or two. The lineups will include: Bob Marley, Dwight Slade, Steve Byrne, Andrew Kennedy, Al Madrigal, Joe Matarese, Dwayne Perkins, Jeff Dye, John Caparulo, Nick Thune, Erin Jackson and Louis Ramey. And representing the Chicago area: Patti Vasquez, Rocky LaPorte, Hannibal Buress, Matt Braunger, John Roy, Sebastian Mansicalco, John Mulaney, TJ Miller, and Dale Jones.

Sounds a lot like something in between what Comedy Central has been doing with its Live at Gotham and half-hour Comedy Central Presents series. Here's what Dennis Adamovich, senior VP and g.m. of the TBS comedy festivals, had to say about it: "This series demonstrates how our comedy festivals are more than just first-rate showcases through which we can extend the TBS brand. They are also an outstanding opportunity to mine fresh talent for the network's comedy lineup."

Philadelphia comedians "invade" NYC

If you notice a little more brotherly love, or aggressive audience behavior, this weekend, then perhaps you have stumbled upon this weekend's Philly invasion of NYC! J/K. Sort of. What do I know? This: Over the next four nights (May 28-31), Philadelphia stand-up comedians, sketch and improv groups will take over the Under St. Mark's Theater in the East Village for eight shows. Get your ticket and lineup information for the PHIT in NYC shows here! (Thanks to Comic vs. Audience for hollering my way)

Following comedians on Twitter

Listing the best comedians on Twitter seems about as fruitless an enterprise as listing the best comedians onstage, or in a kitchen -- no, wait, I suppose if we're talking about comedians cooking, that might be easier to judge -- because there's no accounting for any individual's particular taste. Unless, again, we're talking about cooking. But we're not. We're talking about comedy.

And yet, organizations are trying to quantify funny Tweets and Tweeters. Trying? Well, they're doing is what they're doing.

Rooftop Comedy is accepting votes right now, should you wish to weigh in on whom you think is the funniest Twitter Tweeter of them all.

The folks over at Mashable have provided us with a list of 85 comedians on Twitter, though reading the list, it appears as though their particular interests are literally all over the map.

And then there's Comedy Tweet, which appears to be a site that aggregates the Twitter comedians for you in one stalkerish location online. Looks like they've been adding comedians left and right today. Perhaps that's because they launched today. Newbies!

If you have not yet already noticed (look at the box in the upper left corner of this here home page), I'm on Twitter, too. Follow me @thecomicscomic. Thanks!

More reasons why Todd Glass is funnier without limits

Todd Glass is a very funny man who is funniest when he speaks his mind and reacts to the situation in front of him. Here is an example this week of just that, with Glass riffing and ranting directly at Daniel Tosh about Tosh's upcoming Comedy Central show.

Infectious laughter, right? Right. Now, here was Todd Glass earlier this month on Jimmy Kimmel Live:

Something about having Glass be calm and restrained for the camera (or is it for the network execs?) is just not quite as special as seeing the Todd Glass we all know and love. Stop putting a leash on our funnyman, TV people! Let Todd Glass roam wild and free, where he can entertain us, and the rest of us, as well.

"The Awkward Kings of Comedy" on film

Some stand-up comedy specials try to overwhelm you with flashing spotlights, raucous applause and laughter in cutaway crowd shots, and rapid-fire editing. OR, you could go ahead and showcase some unique comedians and let the material and stage presence speak for itself. In The Awkward Kings of Comedy, director/executive producer Victor Varnado puts the camera directly on his performers -- Baron Vaughn, Eric Andre, Hannibal Buress, host Marina Franklin, and himself -- and gives them the 15-minute showcase sets they deserve to share with the world. Certainly, there are hip-hop beats (provided by King Supernuts the Second), animated sequences for each performer, as well as an opening animation with voiceover narration that suggests two warring African tribes stumbled upon the first "Yo Momma" jokes.

This film isn't about the leaders of the pack, as this intro itself reveals, but rather, about the awkward kid in the glasses standing near the leader, who someday would become "funny...and a little bit weird."

The title also, of course, references back to Spike Lee's 2000 stand-up concert documentary, The Original Kings of Comedy. Varnado's film is an "alternative" nerd response to this, demonstrating that black comedians do not have to do stereotypical black comedy. Whatever that means. During one conversational interlude in the documentary, the comedians discuss the differences between a "predominantly black" crowd and a "predominantly urban" one, and you'll see by watching these performances that they would kill just fine in the former room, but they'd have to work hard for their laughs in the latter. Franklin even acknowledges the difficulties once trying to win over the audience at Showtime's At the Apollo.

Here, though, over the course of two shows taped at 45 Bleecker, the comedians can be themselves and allow an audience to see a "super articulate" man who likes to sing (Vaughn), a multicultural tornado of a comedian (Andre), a laidback guy with punchlines that will floor you (Buress), a black albino with the superpower to make you laugh (Varnado) and a woman who was both the blackest girl in a white neighborhood and the whitest girl in a black neighborhood (Franklin). It's all quite enjoyable, and the kind of special that Comedy Central, HBO and anyone else looking to showcase stand-up comedy should be broadcasting and producing more often.

The Awkward Kings of Comedy has its world premiere screening May 30 at the 92Y Tribeca in NYC, with a post-screening Q&A with Varnado.

A.D. Miles presents "Hot Sluts"

Before A.D. Miles headed up the writing staff for NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, but after he had completed his true-to-its-word online mockery of soap operas, Horrible People, he wrote and produced a second Internet series for you to enjoy. Showing his true understanding of how the Internet works, Miles presents for your pleasure...Hot Sluts. The Atom.com series, co-written with Joe Lo Truglio and starring Alison Brie (stuck in a terrible TV marriage as Trudy Campbell in Mad Men), is set in a seedy nightclub called Scenario's (where anything can happen!), and "sort of borrows from the sexploitation women-in-prison films of the 70s and 80s, but I don't think anyone under 35 will ever get that," Miles told C.J. Arabia earlier this year. "So hopefully super hot girls in skimpy outfits who stab each other for no reason will be enough to get people to tune in." Done, and done.

All five episodes went online yesterday, and you can enjoy them all...after the jump. Did we mention mature content? Alrighty then. You asked for this, Internet, and now you have it: "Hot Sluts."

Zach Galifianakis has Bradley Cooper (and Carrot Top!) between two ferns

You have had to have seen at least one of the funny trailers for the upcoming summer comedy, The Hangover, and you already have June 5 circled on your calendar to go to the cineplex to see it. Wait no more, however, for this latest installment of Zach Galifianakis' anti-talk show, Between Two Ferns, in which he gets slap-happy with his co-star, Bradley Cooper. And yes. As the title above suggests, there shall also be some Carrot Top action. (Note: Video does contain profanities, and Carrot Top). Enjoy!

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

Fleet Week NYC meets The Full Ginsburg

I'm going to have to apologize upfront for some sporadic blogging this week, as I am moving The Comic's Comic -- not far, and not for long, because as they sang in "On the Town," New York, New York is a wonderful town. Perhaps even more so when Eric Cunningham of The Full Ginsburg interviews a few of the sailors in NYC visiting over the weekend for Fleet Week, and asking them if their real-life experiences are just like the 1944 Broadway production and 1949 movie musical that starred Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra:

Note to readers: The Comic's Comic will be on a sporadic blogging schedule all this week due to packing and unpacking as I move HQ to a new Brooklyn location. Please be patient. I'll still provide some news, interviews and reviews as I get chances to do so!

Chris Gethard's Magic Box of Stories (birthday edition)

While you were launching headlong into your Memorial Day Weekend plans, I was one of about 100 fortunate souls to witness a special edition of Chris Gethard's "Magic Box of Stories," the comedian's engaging and entertaining autobiographical storytelling series at the UCB.

Chris Gethard is an improv superstar these days at the UCB's New York City theater, performing regularly with The Stepfathers, teaching classes, and receiving a lot of applause and attention each year during the Del Close Marathon. Gethard also has a lot of interesting tales to tell from his life experiences growing up in New Jersey; so many, in fact, that he has written the titles of these stories down on index cards and placed them in a container (or magic box, as it were). For his "Magic Box of Stories," he asks audience members to pull out an index card, he tells that story, then plays a video commentary from his mother, "Big" Sal, in which she adds her two cents.

Last night''s late show was extra special for Gethard, though, because it began at 11 p.m. on Morrissey's 50th birthday and ended just shy of midnight, the start of Gethard's 29th birthday. "I can't think of a better way of starting my birthday than by sharing it with you," he told the audience. That, despite his insistence early in the show that birthdays are not his favorite time of year because he tends to reflect on how close (or far) he is from achieving his dreams. What does this have to do with Morrissey? Well, as Gethard explained, he long has been a huge fan of Morrissey, and earlier this spring, he met The Smiths frontman and got an autograph tattooed into his arm. So Gethard recounted this story for the audience, with the follow-up of how Internet haters hated on him (on a Morrissey fan site, even?!). I'm not sure why Morrissey fans would hate one of their own for getting his autograph tattooed, but whatevs. We want to hear more from Gethard's life and travels.

On this night, audience members asked for and received tales of his "6 Red Bumps" (a sexual romp gone wrong), "My Father" (a hilarious recounting of how some teen punks incurred the wrath of his father) and "Button Woods." I'd tell you about this last one, but you can see and hear a version of it for yourself, from Gethard's "Magic Bus of Stories" -- when the comedian chartered a bus, packed it with fans and drove around to the sites of his experiences while telling the stories. Here is a video slideshow from that daylong event. The dramatic pacing and punchlines are tougher to convey while standing on a moving bus, but you'll get the idea (contains a few profanities):

Gethard's Magic Bus: The Beast of Button Woods from Brian Glidewell on Vimeo.

The next edition of Chris Gethard's Magic Box of Stories takes place June 6. Check the UCB-NY listings for future times and dates.

Watch Marc Maron and Jim Gaffigan talk shop

Here's a fun way to flow into a holiday weekend. Jim Gaffigan is a guest on Marc Maron's Break Room Live, and the two talked about their experiences in comedy. Seriously. Also funny. And congrats to Gaffigan on the birth of his third child! (Thx for the head's up, Comic vs. Audience)

Comedy Central's Tosh.0 has a blog, live tapings

Daniel Tosh's new Comedy Central show that makes fun with, of and at the Internets is ramping up production as the debut nears next month, with a Tosh.0 blog, and a live taping coming up June 1 (if you live near Culver City, Calif., click here for info). The show debuts June 4. Hey, that's soon!

For those of you who think this is just a regurgitation of VH1's Web Junk, or perhaps an early competitor to G4's Web Soup -- or even the nonexistent Junk Soup and Web Web -- here are some more details from Comedy Central, which claim that Tosh.0 will have its own features. Among them: Original videos created by and starring famous actors and comics, a weekly "Viewer's Choice" vid elected from a slate uploaded onto Atom.com, and a "Web Redemption" segment offering a second chance for the infamous "stars" of viral videos.

Inside the mind of Robert Mac: Problem Thinker

I caught Robert Mac headlining earlier this week at Cap City Comedy Club in Austin (he's there through May 23; check his site for future dates). Mac likes to have fun with words, and when he plays around with phrases and concepts, it sometimes takes the audience a minute or two to catch up, but once they do, Mac gets rolling and the audience enjoys trying to keep up with him. Roll a clip!

Problem Thinker

The Will Ferrell song you didn't hear on the American Idol finale

The finale of American Idol generally tries to surprise TV audiences with a lot of superstar appearances and performances, but according to Funny or Die's Adam McKay, we almost got to see and hear Will Ferrell deliver his own "tribute" to the nation's #1 show. As McKay wrote on the FOD blog: "So we were contacted by American Idol about Ferrell doing something on the season finale tonight. We wrote a song and they said yes. Then I think they took a beat and actually read what we wanted to do and the plug was pulled. But we got pretty far down the road."

McKay said they were still willing and raring to go as recently as the night beforehand. Something tells me, however, that they read the lyrics and thought: Idol is more than willing to mock its contestants, but mocking the judges? That's Simon Cowell's job.

NYT profiles Conan O'Brien, late-night TV shuffle

This coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine profiles Conan O'Brien, and is as much about the changes in late-night TV coming this summer and fall, as it is about O'Brien himself. Some great quotes. Such as this tidbit, in which O'Brien talked about how, earlier this year, he'd tape two Late Nights on Thursdays so he could spend his Fridays building his relationships with various NBC affiliates around the country:

“I felt like Lyndon Johnson in the hill country, running a grass-roots campaign,” O’Brien said. “In places like Oklahoma City, everyone was wearing Conan wigs and they brought a Clydesdale out of a truck. I grabbed a cowboy hat and rode in circles in front of the station. There were cheerleaders doing cheers for me and banners with my name on them. I kept thinking, I came into show business through the back door of SNL and The Simpsons, and now I’m in the carnival. Which I love. If you want to host The Tonight Show, you need to go to Kansas City and Cleveland and Milwaukee and San Jose and Oklahoma City. There’s something about the show that does belong to those people.”

(photo by Dewey Nicks for the NYT)

Review: Jenny Slate in "Dead Millionaire"

Jenny Slate long has been a dirty darling of New York City's independent comedy scene as half of the duo Gabe & Jenny. You may have seen her deliver a witty barb or two by herself as a talking head on a VH1 clip show, but what would a full-fledged solo Jenny Slate show look and sound like? Let me give you a hint: Her weekly show with Gabe and Max Silvestri isn't the only thing that's Big Terrific.

Behold: "Dead Millionaire." Jenny Slate's one-person show, currently enjoying its first limited run at the UCB Theatre in NYC (next show: May 21), imagines a future in which she has become a famous eccentric performer, and upon her death, all of the characters who have interacted with her come back to offer remembrances, celebrate at "Jenny's I'm Dead Now Party" and find out who she had left her many millions to, and her little dog, too!

The show opens with Slate playing a TV anchor reporting live from the Jewish temple services in Canton, Mass., reporting on the tragic death of this "Jewy beauty." Onstage, Slate also takes on the persona of her attorney, Ruth Diamond Phillips (Wellesley '85), an uptight single gal that Slate manages to play tricks upon from beyond the grave; Slate's beloved niece, Misty, who explains the wisdom behind the film Men in Black; her dumb, blind, sweet cousin Gina tries to "hand out" the money -- "Don't let it get saved!" she cries; and a cameo by Gloria Estefan, who, it turns out, had a life-changing encounter with Slate. Even more characters pop up to offer brief bursts of silliness in a series of videos. 

And Slate plays a version of herself, too, on video, offering up instructions "in the event of my death," as well as things Jenny liked, things she hated, and her favorite music videos.

What really makes the whole thing shine so brightly is watching, hearing and discovering the demented lunacy that comes out this little Betty Boop of a spritely girl, and wondering, what does she have up her sleeves next? I, for one, cannot wait to find out.

Meet Bryson Turner, 2009 Funniest Person in Austin

I'm enjoying my time in Austin, Texas, and will have a full report for you soon enough. But first, here's a portion of a chat I had last night with Bryson Turner after he won the 24th annual Funniest Person in Austin contest. Each winner gets handed that cape and crown, and jokes aplenty were made about the condition of said cape and crown. Turner is a recent transplant to Austin's comedy scene -- he's from the Pittsburgh area and formed his early stand-up start in D.C. Here, let him explain how he has settled in nicely enough in Austin, and why he chose the Texas capital to grow his career as a comedian (includes a few choice words):

OK. So we won't bore you with more chitty-chat. Instead, enjoy some of Turner's comedy. The final sets from the FPIA contest aren't up yet, but here is his performance from an earlier round that covers pretty much the same ground (slightly NSFW):

NBC's Thursday-night comedy dilemma

NBC announced its new fall 2009 (and spring 2010) schedules today at the network upfronts, and the one thing I still cannot help but wonder is how Jay Leno will handle his first several Thursday nights of one-hour broadcasts at 10 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (9 p.m. Central/Mountain) -- knowing full well that the Saturday Night Live crew will be beating him to the punch with a half-hour of live topical jokes on their Weekend Update Thursday broadcasts at 8 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (7 p.m. Central/Mountain). Sounds like Leno should be the one with a segment called "Really!?!" instead of Seth Meyers.