Just when you were feeling good about how your comedy career was progressing, here's a reminder that you probably didn't record your second stand-up comedy CD before you turned 20. Bo Burnham -- the teen who became a musical comedy star thanks to the YouTube and recorded his first Comedy Central special in August 2008, four days after he turned 18 -- is recording his second CD tonight at Carolines on Broadway in NYC.
I asked Burnham about it. Here's what he told me earlier today: "It's a lot of music, lot of stand-up - and isn't the biggest clusterfuck in the world."
What more do you need to know? Oh, how about this: In July, Burnham heads on tour to perform at the Just For Laughs festivals in Toronto and Montreal, then across the pond for the Carlsberg festival in Dublin, and the month of August at Edinburgh Fringe.
Sam Tripoli's "Naughty Show" at the Hollywood Improv got a little down and dirty last week when "The Amazing Racist" (aka comedian Ari Shaffir) dishonored porn star and comedy fan Dana DeArmond in some fashion that is not captured on tape. What was captured was what happened next: 1980s WWF star heel "Rowdy" Roddy Piper emerged to defend DeArmond's honor, called out Shaffir, and then, inevitably, they rassled. Spoiler alert? Piper won.
TMZ took the footage and ran with it last night. Shaffir, who infamously was at the center of a different feud in front of a live comedy club audience (See: Rogan v. Mencia), took a different level of pride about this more recent encounter.
Louis CK told me last week that he decided it was more than OK to use the stand-up he had been delivering to audiences over the past year and incorporate it into his new FX comedy, Louie. He hadn't filmed it yet for a DVD, so he said: "Then what, what am I saving this for? Do I want a special more than I want a series? To take primo, weapons-grade material, and spread it over the course of a series, so I decided, then I started taking things in that hour..."
If you've seen him live in the past year, then you've heard Louis CK joke about volunteering at the NYC public school his daughters attend, and his, well, hilarious way of looking at dating and puppies, and how it's not going to end well, no matter what. My friend Gabe over at Videogum decided to highlight and isolate this "primo, weapons-grade material" from last night's premiere of Louie so you can enjoy it. So. Enjoy it!
I have to admit that the heat wave of the past week slowed my internal processing unit, and that's not a euphemism, so it's only now that I can live comfortably once again today that I truly could appreciate this new parody video of the New York Times wedding "Vows" videos -- just thinking that such a thing exists in reality as something that couples would believe that anyone else would want to see, well -- and the devastating line readings by Ben Kronberg as "Ted," who's getting married to the naive "Gracie" (Jena Friedman). Yikes! Roll it.
In its announcement today, Seattle's Labor Day weekend Bumbershoot festival boasted that it has offered comedy alongside its music stages for many of its 40 years -- far longer than all of these newer, popular upstarts. Kids, right?
Anyhow. What about the kids who'll be performing for you kids in Seattle this September? There will be lots of them, spread out over three separate comedy stages: One for the larger group events and showcase, one for up-and-coming and up-and-up stand-ups, and a third for the local Pacific Northwest flavors of comedy.
Comedy Stage South: Patton Oswalt & Friends; Bring the Rock with Greg Behrendt; Comedy Loves Music! featuring Garfunkel and Oates, David O’Doherty and Nick Thune; Comedy Podcast Live! featuring live episodes of Never Not Funny with Jimmy Pardo, WTF? with Marc Maron, and The Nerdist with Chris Hardwick
Comedy Stage North: Donald Glover; Chris Hardwick; Jamie Kilstein; Nick Kroll; Joe Mande; Marc Maron; John Mulaney; Morgan Murphy; Kumail Nanjiani; Tig Notaro; Chelsea Peretti
Comedy Stage West: Blood Squad; Duos; Bridgetown Comedy Festival Showcase; The Cracked Up; Famous Mysterious Actor Show; Komedy Kabaret; Laff Hole!; New Kids; Stop Podcasting Yourself Live Podcast; TBTL Live Podcast; Ubiquitous They
Although Forbes only categorizes four performers on its 2010 edition of "The Celebrity 100" as comedians, the magazine actually counts 13 comedians on its list of famous people ranked by wealth and power.
Ellen DeGeneres, with $35 million in earnings from her daytime TV show, endorsements and more, was the highest-ranked comedian at #23.
Other comedians, in order of ranking, with their yearly income:
Someone decided it was hot enough in here to buy some ice cream treats, stay home, and get giggly with it tonight. OK. Fine. It was so hot in NYC today that my brain obviously isn't working, so maybe the mush of the TV will make everything right in the world again. Either that, or Craig Robinson and a kitty cat will tell me it's time for the first part of the semifinals of season seven of NBC's Last Comic Standing. Finally we're getting somewhere. UPDATED: Now with video clips!
Are you ready for your first semifinalist, Myq Kaplan? I put the comma in the wrong place there, because he is more than ready, he is already done because this was a taped performance. Don't call in with your votes just yet. Kaplan is feeling bookish this evening, telling us about books, movies, and movies about books. Kaplan also is the first, at least if we're presuming they haven't edited the placement here, to have to deal with the hyped-up live audience at the Alex Theater in Glendale, Calif. Judges Andy Kindler, Natasha Leggero and Andy Kindler all have nice things to say about Myq Kaplan. Kindler says Kaplan "absolutely killed" which means he lost the pool? "I can't think of a funnier line in comedy than Brad Pitt is in this book." And we're getting judges notes, as if it really is going to be the American Idol version of LCS. Then again, we did hear judges give notes to comedians during the semis in previous seasons, so maybe it's just time for a commercial break. Any predictions? I have one!
Jamie Lee is up next, and she admits backstage that she is terrified about being seen by millions on the TV. Too late! You're on TV! Lee gets whoops from audience members when she says she's originally from Texas, but wants to joke about her model roommate in NYC. Lee also mentions dating a comedian, and knowing it's bad when even their inside jokes were bombing. (Note: Lee already has told me that her jokes about her comedian ex are not really about her comedian ex, for those of you who were thinking about someone specific just then). Leggero says Lee has "huge potential," while Giraldo says it wasn't her best set. Based on these notes, you could swap them out with Idol, couldn't you? You could. You could.
Mike DeStefano wants to be so good, the audience sets the place on fire. I'm not sure that would actually be a good thing, but it makes for a soundbite. DeStefano jokes about how everyone in his neighborhood was Italian, including the old Chinese guy and the young black kid. Did you know that Italians shrink and get mean when they get old? This audience is so hot, they're hooting and handing out applause breaks for everything. DeStefano keeps saying "thank you, thank you" like a politician trying to get back to his stump speech. Because he wants you to know how he deals with pretty ladies. Kindler finds him "hilarious" and could not criticize any portion of his set. "And you have screamers," Leggero added. She asks about his Jesus tattoo, and DeStefano corrects her: "It's Jim Caviezel."
Todd Glass is doing stand-up tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and when I went searching to see if it's a repeat or not, I saw this short clip of Glass performing at the Acme Comedy Co. in Minneapolis, wherein Glass impersonates the late Rodney Dangerfield doing jokes from the late Mitch Hedberg. Respect, I tell you! Respect!
On today's new edition of Marc Maron's WTF podcast, Maron sits down with Dane Cook -- and Cook apparently has video footage of this, which may or may not see daylight, too -- you get to hear Maron be an asshole while accusing Cook of being an asshole. It makes for an interesting listen. Both guys seem to have an agenda. Both guys seem to have an understanding of the other person that fits while at the same time doesn't fit. In between bits of verbal sparring, you get to hear Cook talk about his childhood and school life, his father's alcoholism, and about his outlook on life.
Happy ending? Listen to the whole thing (including Maron's opening monologue about his battles with nicotine):
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? That's the lesson you might seem to get from the Daytime Emmys, which handed out awards over the weekend to a lot of the same shows they did last year.
Ellen DeGeneres won for outstanding talk show (entertainment division).
Ben Bailey's Cash Cab on the Discovery Channel once again won for outstanding game show, but this time around, Bailey himself also grabbed the individual prize for game show host!
Clean House on the Style Network, with comedian co-hosts Niecy Nash, Matt Iseman and Trish Suhr, won for outstanding special class special.
If you think watching stand-up comedians compete for money is something, then what's it like watching improv groups compete for big cash money? Well, let me tell you: It's very intriguing! Some groups really rose to the challenge over the weekend in the inaugural Friars Club Improv + Sketch Competition, and The Stepfathers walked away with the $10,000 prize on Friday night; Harvard Sailing Team followed suit with the $10,000 prize in the sketch finals on Saturday. Both groups will use their winnings to film shorts that will debut in September at the Friars Club Film Festival.
The first person we see on tonight's TBS special, Team Coco Presents The Conan Writers Live, is a writer of the online variety as Team Coco's blogger Aaron Bleyaert visits the dressing room of host Andy Richter.
The first person we see performing onstage is Reggie Watts, the musical talent and Team Coco's opening act on this spring's North American theater tour as suggested by Conan's TV writers. Watts provides the special's theme music and also delivers a rather straightforward -- well, in as much as anything Watts does can be construed as straightforward -- song about women who carry big ass purses.
And as Richter notes in his opening monologue, it's a wonder any of the writers are getting primetime TV exposure, joking: "The main reason you're getting to see them at all is because Conan cannot be on TV until the fall. And as I think everybody knows by now, Conan is very easily threatened and unbelievably insecure. So he has been keeping these guys down for years. But not tonight!"
As for the writers who we do get to see on TV, Brian Kiley kicks things off properly with a tight five-minute set of his well-crafted one-liners about parenting. After the first commercial break, Richter introduces Deon Cole by noting that Cole had performed so well as a stand-up on Conan's show that they hired him to join the writing staff full-time. Cole, a native of the Chicago suburbs, joked about curing a hangover with a hangover, what it's like to be the only black person in the writers' room, and closed with a routine about the things black and white people don't want to do in front of the other race.
Jimmy Pardo, the warm-up comedian for Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show audiences, gets a shout-out for his Never Not Funny podcast in Richter's introduction. And I'm going to avoid the trap Pardo set for bloggers, instead choosing to focus on his otherwise meta routine and his one-liner roast of Watts, who remained onstage throughout the taping: "What don't you have: Scissors or a mirror?"
Josh Comers got introduced with the selling point of still having "that new writer smell." Comers wondered why little girls would ever wear a T-shirt saying "You Wish" across the chest, what it's like when your landlord is a Holocaust survivor, and boasted that one joke makes him lose 10 Facebook friends every time he tells it. You'll know it when you hear it.
Andres du Bouchet closes out the special, and Richter introduced him as a veteran of the NYC comedy scene since 1996 and, for Conan's viewers, as the "Tiger Woods joke caddy." Du Bouchet came out in character with a smoking jacket and gave the audience a preview of the one-man musical about his life: "100 and Me Percent: The Andres du Bouchet Saga." And yes, he did include the number about 9/11.
For those of you keeping track, Matt O'Brien and Dan Cronin also performed sets at the tapings which did not make it to broadcast. Eric Andre also provided an energetic stand-up routine as the warm-up comedian.
Team Coco Presents The Conan Writers Live debuts at 10 p.m. Eastern tonight on TBS.
In her fourth variety special for TBS, and second filmed from the Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival, Ellen DeGeneres welcomes back Nick Cannon as her DJ, and also showcases the quick-change artists seen previously on America's Got Talent, acrobats, a magician, a heartfelt audience Q&A that -- since today marked Gay Pride Parades around the country -- seems more than fitting for DeGeneres, and a guest stand-up performance by Chicago native John Mulaney.
The Mulaney clip isn't online yet -- Ellen's Somewhat Special Special debuts at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight on TBS -- but includes his observations on how old crimes could easily become Cold Case Files, and a rephrasing of his routine on what he'd do with the big budgets for blockbuster movies.
Here, though, is a sneak peek at Ellen's opening monologue, with observations about Chicago, names, and and an appearance by the Stanley Cup-winning Chicago Blackhawks.
Some things you want to unhear but you just cannot, and such is the case with the relentless vuvuzela horn-blasting during the FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa. Some things you want to unsee and unhear, but when Opie from Opie and Anthony has his video camera out, and Jim Norton is sticking a vuvuzela in his ass to play, er, blow, er, fart into it. Well, that's morning radio, people! Roll the clip if you dare:
I also had the chance at Just For Laughs Chicago to talk to David Wain, who along with Rob Corddry and Jonathan Stern is the third executive producer, and sometimes writer and director of Childrens' Hospital. Wain helps explain how they changed the show to make it more TV-friendly, how several other funny people have helped out in writing the show, and why Wain has no plans to try to turn his MyDamnChannel series Wainy Days into a TV show.
At the Just For Laughs Chicago festival last week, Rob Corddry showed up with his fellow Childrens' Hospital producers David Wain and Jonathan Stern and co-stars Erinn Hayes and Lake Bell to offer a sneak peek at three episodes of the series that's making the jump from online to TV later this summer on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.
It contains the same ridiculous and often outrageous sensibilities as the web series did, with turns from Rob Huebel, Megan Mullally, Henry Winkler, Malin Akerman, Ken Marino and a wide array of guest stars.
Alas, the Childrens' Hospital screening and Q&A took place last Thursday night at the same time as Team Coco was taping a TBS special at a sold-out theater downtown, Aziz Ansari had packed another theater, The Second City's Class of 1979 was putting on a charity reunion performance, and, oh, the NBA's biggest teams, Lakers-Celtics, was down to Game Seven. That still should have left a million Chicagoans to show up at Park West, right? Not quite. There were plenty of empty seats at Park West, which prompted Corddry and his colleagues to start their show on an odd foot, and it just got darker and weirder from there. Before I go on, this is what Corddry had to say to me after the show, in which he explained how Adult Swim is a perfect TV home for Childrens' Hospital and you can tell by his tone how he was feeling.
OK. So, yeah. There were a few more than 15 people there, but the size of the room made it feel much more awkward -- well, that, and the decision by the cast to turn the planned audience Q&A into a two-way roast between the cast and the audience.
One actual Q that got an actual A from Corddry: Why the clown-faced makeup? "I hate clowns. I think clowns think that they're funny, but nobody takes themselves more seriously than clowns."
We did get to see three new 11-minute episodes, including "Joke Overload," which guest stars Jeffrey Ross as himself, Clark Duke as a Trekkie and Adam Scott as a Klingon doctor, and Ernie Hudson as a patient; "You Know No One Can Hear You, Right?" with Ed Begley Jr. and Rachael Harris as a couple that wants to abort their teen-aged son; and "Hot Enough For You?" filmed in a noirish tone. And with Henry Winkler on board with the cast as the hospital administrator, the cast decided to serenade Winkler onstage -- well, a fake Winkler -- by singing the theme to Happy Days with Wain accompanying on guitar. You know what? I do have the last lines of this on video, so why not share it, even if it's not the whole song:
And here's a clip of Corddry in character comparing his show to other medical shows on the TV:
Childrens Hospital begins airing July 11 on Adult Swim with the webisodes playing two at a time for five weeks, with a week off of the schedule along the way before the second season debuts on Aug. 22.
Since "Bros Icing Bros" is a stupid thing that only exists in reality for stupid people who spread it to other stupid people on the Internet, leave it to Daniel Tosh, host of Comedy Central's Tosh.0, to put an end to it, right?
Oh, wait. I got this wrong. This is obviously footage of Ben Gleib talking to fans silly enough to stand in line for hours for the new iPhone. No. Oops. Sorry about this. It's actually Gleib with Star Wars fanatics camped out in line. Oh, gosh golly whoopsie daisy. It's Comic-Con. No? Maybe we should have stuck with the original title, since the latest Twilight book-to-movie had its Hollywood premiere, and Gleib stared straight into the Eclipse to confront the ridiculous Team Edward and Team Jacob fanatics. I mean, you know and I know this is all a bit ridiculous, but what makes fanatics like these (or Harry Potter fans, even) extraordinarily odd to observe is the fact that there should be no suspense in anticipating a movie franchise that follows a book series. But what do I know? Roll tape.
And now that Ben and I both feel like we've wasted everyone's time, let's try to salvage this post with some TV footage of Gleib doing what he gets paid to do at the Hollywood Improv in this clip from Last Call with Carson Daly (which, yes, every time someone types this, millions of people make bewildered faces, we get it). Finally, someone defending delicious beverages! Team Ben!
All this week, seven newspaper sites have been offering a trial run of online animated videos called "Beyond The Comics," created by former Saturday Night Live head writer Fred Wolf and starring the voices of several former SNLers, including David Spade, Jack Handey, Tim Meadows, Sarah Silverman, Dana Carvey, Colin Quinn, Norm MacDonald, Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon. Craig Kilborn also does a spot.
Today's features includes a new "Church Lady" bit by Dana Carvey.
Participating newspaper sites are the San Francisco Chronicle, Monterey Herald, SeattlePI.com, Idaho Statesman, Tri-City Herald, Houston Chronicle and Miami Herald.
Wolf, who lives in Carmel, Calif., told the Monterey Herald that he dreamed as a child of drawing his own newspaper comic strips. "I thought, 'Well, I got access to these comics, but what can I do with these voices,'" he said. "I've always wanted to draw comics for the newspaper when I was kid. That's what I thought I was going to do when I grew up. Then I realized, I draw like crap. And that's the truth."
When FX and Louis CK announced that they'd be collaborating on a sitcom that consisted of stand-up routines followed by vignettes based on his stand-up routines, it'd be fair of you to think that Louis CK was doing his version of Seinfeld. But this is not a show about nothing. This is a show about something. Actually, Louie, which debuts June 29, is more than something. Louie is the most original, honest comedy on TV in a generation. Think of everything you've liked about All in the Family and Curb Your Enthusiasm, then remove the live studio audience and the cringe factor, and then you're prepared to have your thoughts provoked.
After debuting the first two episodes at a red-carpet premiere at Carolines on Monday night, Louis CK talked to me about the series Tuesday on his way to the airport to California for his Leno and Lopez appearances.
But first, here's a short scene from the pilot, in which Louis CK jokes about volunteering for his daughters at their NYC public school, followed by comedian William Stephenson as an aloof bus driver hired to take the field trip to the Bronx Botanical Gardens:
In the third episode, we see Louis CK get into a fight with Nick DiPaolo at the Comedy Cellar after both had performed downstairs -- a fake fight that some people were duped into thinking was real.
"I was really pleased with the reaction. I wanted it to feel like a real fight. It's filmed like a real scene. The camera pushes in and then when we start, the camera has to look up to find us...I didn't want to fool people...but that's what i wanted it to be...and then when this guy put it on YouTube and Howard Stern talked about it. Nick is really that good of an actor. Nick is a fucking good actor. I was fucking pissed that this extra put this clip up on YouTube. It's one thing if a fan walking by...that's obnoxious, but it's a fan, it's hard for you to stop...but an extra, a professional actor who works for you, that's absurd. We had to get a lawyer."
Louis CK also gets naked in two of the first three episodes, showing his ass. Is that symbolic of the naked honesty you were aiming for in the series? Or do you just like getting naked on camera? "That was necessary for a proper level of humiliation. I don't do it for nothing. I do think that nudity should have a reason story-wise. I remember when I was on Lucky Louie and I was naked once, and so was Rick Shapiro. I was on a radio show in Cleveland. It was one of my worst experiences ever...One of them goes, 'Why are you naked on your show? I don't want to see that! Why isn't the chick naked? Why can't I see her titties?'...The premium people put on that shit..."
The tone of Louie -- short films done without an audience, as opposed to a multi-camera sitcom filmed in front of a live studio audience -- is the polar opposite of Lucky Louie. Was that intentional? "It wasn't a reaction at all in any way to Lucky Louie. This was its own idea. I've been making short films for years. Features. I love directing. And shooting on location in New York. I've kind of been able to do everything I want with this show."
For fans who have seen your earlier shorts, is that the same helicopter in the pilot that you used for your short stealing the ice cream from the kid? "It sure is. It's the same guy. We have this friend who has this cheap helicopter. He's been really good to us. I don't want to say his name because he's been so good to us....When we shot this HBO stuff a couple of years ago, when I did that helicopter thing, we did other helicopter shots..He said, 'I can't go anywhere near a building or a bridge.' I said OK, we'll get a long lens. And then he was hovering two feet above me. It was so good. I was very proud of Chelsea (Peretti), she got in there and he took off. She was fine with it."
At the premiere, FX's John Landgraf said: "When you say original programming, and you attribute it to Louis, you get really original programming." How important was it to you to do something completely original? I know some people early on wanted to compare Louie to Seinfeld.
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