In case you missed it, Billy Gardell -- star of the new CBS sitcom Mike & Molly -- appeared last week on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Toward the end of Gardell's panel chat, Ferguson mentioned that he'd be visiting Las Vegas soon and would check out Carrot Top's long-running show there.
Which prompted Gardell to say this about knowing Carrot Top:
"When we did open mic night together, and this was back in Florida. We had a big open mic night there. It was me, him, Darrell Hammond, Larry the Cable Guy before he was Larry the Cable Guy (Ferguson: He was just Larry then), yeah Larry. Yeah, and but, but, Carrot Top would come in and he'd set his stuff up on the stage, and we would steal a couple of things out of the trunk. But we wouldn't tell him. And then we'd watch him go, 'Ha ha, ha ha.' But he's a good kid."
Billy Gardell's new Comedy Central special and upcoming DVD, "Halftime," opens with a shot of the comedian driving across one of Pittsburgh's many Three Rivers bridges as a morning radio program begins. As Gardell told The Comic's Comic, he was this close to taking a job in morning radio back in Pittsburgh before he got the call of a career: A starring role in a primetime network sitcom. Mike & Molly has been a breakout hit in its first season on CBS, and earlier this week, the network ordered two additional episodes to fill in for the expected absence of Two and a Half Men due to Charlie Sheen's new stint in rehab.
I caught up with Gardell between shows Friday night at Gotham Comedy Club, and when he stopped glowing about being able to stand on Heinz Field as the Pittsburgh Steelers won the AFC Championship Game, we spoke about the halftime of his career.
But first, let's look at a clip or two from Halftime, debuting Saturday on Comedy Central and next Tuesday on DVD. A veteran headliner with an old-school, working-class view on observational material from the perspective of a husband and father. Here's what he says about young people and their love of iPhone apps. He's old-school enough to still say the word "application" and in the bit, acknowledge: "I just showed how old I am. I just hung up an iPhone." Roll it:
And about wanting his 7-year-old son to have a normal childhood, while still keeping up with what passes for normal now:
Your special is airing the night before the Super Bowl. "Yeah, man. I couldn't have written that better. What's funny is I filmed it in my hometown of Pittsburgh, and when I come out, my town got behind me, and when our town unifies, it just becomes the Terrible Towel. So it's just going to look like I flew in to do that special before the game, which is going to be awesome."
Now when you were starting out as a stand-up, did you imagine that someday, you'd be the star in a romantic comedy TV series? "Nah. I always thought with my mug and my shape, I'd be like the buddy, the neighbor, or the bad guy. But never in the middle of a romantic comedy. It's just been unbelievable."
So when they brought you the initial pitch and the script... "No, my agent sent me the script and set an audition for me, and I went in and read for Chuck Lorre, who's the executive producer, and Mark Roberts, who is the creator of the show. And I read this part in front of these people and figured, if I could get a bit part later down the line. I had no idea. I wish I could say to you, that it was, I stayed the course! I had no fucking idea. Literally, I got hit with the lucky stick. I just happened to fall into the best people in TV."
And I take it from what you said at the end of your show tonight here at Gotham -- he closed by thanking the audience for watching Mike & Molly and saying, "We're the show they wish wasn't a hit. We've become those relatives you have to have over." -- that you've been paying attention to the so-called controversy from critics wondering if TV can show overweight people falling in love. "Well, it shows normal people. That's what I like. Look. A couple of us are overweight. One has a drinking and weed problem. One gives bad advice. You know any of those people? (laughs) That's why people identify with it. We're not Ross and Rachel. You know what I mean? Stuff don't work out for us, which is great."
You also prove that people with problems don't all look like Charlie Sheen. "Exactly. Well, you know, hey man, it don't matter what you look like. When it comes to getcha, it comes to getcha. But. Our group is just a group of people you wouldn't normally see. The characters, Mike and Molly, are two characters you'd never thought they would fall in love, and to see them get that chance, that's why people root for them. You know what I mean? If you can't root for that you're dead inside."
It's not exactly the rebirth of the stand-up-based-sitcom, but Mike and Molly is a definite step up in the right direction for Billy Gardell. Gardell, who had recurring roles previously as a supporting character in such series as My Name is Earl and Yes, Dear, takes the lead in Mike and Molly, which debuted last night as the new entry in the CBS Monday-night lineup. In case you missed it: CBS has the full Mike and Molly pilot available to view on the show site.
Daniel Fienberg over at HitFix.com has an interesting take on the notion of laughing at versus laughing with, in his review of the pilot. I'm not sure how much of this actually applies to Mike and Molly the series as it does the pilot episode, which naturally (or as natural as Hollywood ever is) paints the broadest strokes possible to attract the widest possible audience. So, yes, the stars who would-be a couple are fat guy and fat woman -- a mild triumph over the sitcom cliche of fat guy with skinny attractive woman -- and there are plenty of fat jokes to be had in the debut. But, take the table pratfall. To me, that cliche moment isn't really about the fall (which essentially happens off-camera), but about the sight gag afterward, which has nothing to do with Gardell's (er, Officer Biggs') weight. Fienberg points to another Chuck Lorre production which hit for CBS, Big Bang Theory, and as I recall, I had zero intention initially of wanting to watch a sitcom based on two geeks and a hot girl. It'd take my mother (someone I didn't expect to be in that show's target demo) to get me to see how that show had evolved into something worth watching, and as CBS has done this year, shifted into a big battle at 8 p.m. Thursdays.
But back to Mike and Molly. Here's a promotional clip:
Melissa McCarthy (as seen on Gilmore Girls) plays the female lead, with a supporting cast including TV vets such as Swoosie Kurtz and Reno Wilson, and Katy Mixon (last seen getting snubbed on Eastbound and Down!)
Congrats to Billy Gardell, a true road warrior in stand-up who has been headlining comedy clubs across America for many years. I last saw Gardell a couple of years ago in Montreal, where he was performing among the "Masters." It's good to see him getting this break after two decades.
As he said in this appearance with Craig Ferguson, he's just now getting to do talk shows. Roll this clip of Gardell and Ferguson, please.
The folks at Montreal's Just For Laughs uploaded videos last week from its 2008 collection of comedians participating in the New Faces and Masters showcases, so you can finally see what I saw this summer. Rather than bombard you with two dozen embedded video clips, I'm going to embed one or two of my faves, then link to the rest.
From the 2008 Masters, here is Todd Glass, and you'll immediately wonder, what's the rest of Larry Miller's funny story introducing him, and who is Glass calling back in his jokes. Jokes, people! Jokes! Todd Glass is a comic's comic, so always welcomed here (language NSFW):
And from the 2008 New Faces, here is Sean Patton's set that got industry people talking (language NSFW):
Everyone else after the jump.
Continue reading "Montreal 2008 New Faces videos (and Masters, too)" »
It's time for one last look around the 2008 Montreal Just For Laughs festival, which Variety reports raked in $10 million (which is about the same in Canadian as it is in U.S. dollars these days!) this July. Which means this final recap must begin with the guy who buzzed about the festival...
Doug Stanhope, who set up his Slamdance to their Sundance, aka Just For Spite festival with shows Friday and Saturday at Club Chaos, told me on Saturday night that he'd been offered a paltry $1,100 to perform 10 nights of one-man shows at the fest (or as he added, less than what he earned during his first trip to Montreal's JFL), which prompted his fury. Much of the buzz about Stanhope during the fest itself centered around two incidents, both of which Stanhope wrote about online. He first aired his grievances on Wednesday via 236.com, then on Friday night, after getting kicked out of a JFL venue by fest organizer Bruce Hills, Stanhope went to his MySpace to fill us in on the details.
Most pleasant surprise in a one-man show: Patrice Oneal. Here's a guy who seems so in your face and so not safe for work that, well, that's how his career even began in Boston, challenging another comedian. And he has made his name on the club circuit as that guy who won't take no gruff. But you take him out of the comedy clubs and put him in an intimate theater setting, give him a stool or a chair and just let him speak...wow. As I noted earlier, his one-man show, Positivity, is positively brilliant. He may think he's not getting any smarter. But this show is the smartest thing he has done.
The lucky New Faces bump? Last year, Tom Papa hosted all of the New Faces showcases and handled himself with such professionalism and managed to bring the funny, that I recall singling him out and hoping he'd get a show of his own. This year, Papa got the special one-man showcase named after the late Richard Jeni and earned nightly standing ovations for his show, Only Human. Here's the Montreal Gazette review to chew on. I saw similar magic coming from Greg Giraldo this year in hosting New Faces, and hope he gets a similar promotion in 2009. Giraldo always has mastered the art of topical social commentary, but there also has been so much going on in his world, both professionally and personally, that could be mined for a one-man show. Let's make that happen.
Funniest comic-on-comic impersonation: Greg Behrendt, who introduced himself to the audience as "a 45-year-old alternative comic," doing Russell Brand at the midnight Alternative showcase, slinking his way around the stage and joking about Brand having sex with Kate Moss.
Toughest ticket for a show I wished I'd seen: They say you mock the ones you love (some do), so Behrendt must have been paying tribute to Russell Brand's status as the hot comic of the moment. You had to sweet talk your way into his sold-out performances. Thankfully, I got to see Brand a couple of days later in New York City (my review of Russell Brand).
Toughest ticket for a show I'm not sorry I missed: Apatow For Destruction. Movie producers and movie stars should not always be confused for great stand-up comedians.
How young is he, again? Bo Burnham, at 17, is the new sensation, already signed to Gersh with a Comedy Central EP that zoomed up the iTunes charts. Where did he come from? Outside of Boston, since you asked. He generated some "heat" as they say in the bidness. I saw him the previous weekend open up for Joel McHale at Carolines and deliver an amazingly proficient and efficient 13-minute musical set of songs and rap. How did this tall, scrawny high-school kid making YouTube videos gain so much poise onstage with less than 20 live performances to his credit? He told me. "I'm young, dumb and fearless." Here's a recent fairly NSFW video from Bo fo yo (argh, I just really typed that and didn't backspace backspace delete, didn't I?):
State of the Industry vs. Comedy Person of the Year: Andy Kindler wins in a walk-off, as Kindler filled the room to more than capacity, with people standing in the foyer, then half of them walking out to skip the festival's awarding of "Comedy Person of the Year" to Judd Apatow. Having Apatow did guarantee that all his famous friends and industry associates would show up in Montreal, though, leading to some heartfelt words from Apatow himself, and a funny quip from Seth Rogen: "Look at us. We're a parade of bad fashion...It's like we're at the rehearsal for the award."
Just Comedy? Remember the days when you didn't have to pay $500 to attend a festival thrown on your behalf? Oh, those were days. But Just Comedy's two-day confab proved to be kind of eh. As I joked to Andy Kindler in our short video interview, I only stayed at the Webisode to Episode panel for about five minutes, because that's as long as that panel should have been. Don't they know this already? Because of that, I missed out on perhaps the liveliest panel of the confab, as club owners kvetched at length about the business of live touring.
All-around favorites: You couldn't go anywhere in Montreal without someone reminding you how great John Mulaney and Brent Weinbach were at the festival. I shall sing Mulaney's praises to anyone who asks, and it was great to see him knock it out of the park (that's a baseball term) at JFL, with people especially rapt over his tale of playing a joke on a restaurant at age 11. Mind you, he's only 25 now. He will tape a Comedy Central Presents next month and you will enjoy it. He's also co-headlining at Comix next month (Aug. 22-23) with Nick Kroll. As for Weinbach, he won the Andy Kaufman Award in Vegas last year for a reason, and showed why in Montreal with an over-the-top performance at the alternative showcases.
New Faces recaps: My favorites or yours? Brendon Walsh stood out for me with his cleverness, while Sean Patton surprised me because I had never seen him in a mainstream club before. Harris Wittels delivered the ballsiest set, ending a routine that included misnamed bands and masturbation issues with a joke about racism. Ira Proctor turned it around so much from the first set to the second that veteran Larry Miller couldn't stop complimenting him. Mo Mandel was the singular standout from the other group. Although truth be told, most people I talked to from the industry were relatively underwhelmed by this year's crop of New Faces as a whole. Then again, they were relatively underwhelmed in general.
State of the New Faces Industry: What does it say about the comedy industry and Montreal's New Faces that two of them, Iliza Shlesinger and Jeff Dye, are among the finalists for this season on NBC's Last Comic Standing? A few things. Among them: The NBC producers prefer fresh-faced comedians, even if they're relatively inexperienced, because it allows them to have control (read: earn money) by launching their careers nationally. Also, it means tough luck for industry wanting a piece, as NBC and the producers have them under its contractual spell already. Anyone want to guess whether Shlesinger and Dye already are locked up for the nationwide club/theater tour that follows the season finale?
The Masters: Speaking of Larry Miller, what a class act he proved to be in Montreal, not just for actually watching younger comedians and saying nice things to them, but also for being the consummate host for the Masters showcases. Miller has been one of the more amusing voices of reason on Bill Maher's HBO chat show, Real Time, and it's so nice to be able to see Miller onstage again doing stand-up. As he told audiences, "Almost everyone on the show is someone I've known for years and respect -- and they're all good." Well, I'll be the judge of that. Henry Cho, a Korean raised in Tennesee, "so I'm South Korean." If you didn't enjoy Esther Ku's jokes about getting Koreans confused for each other, what would you make of this master's trip to the homeland with his father: "When we went to Korea, he walked 20 feet away and I lost him!" Hal Sparks continues to sport his Criss Angel hair and magician look, despite how it looks. It looks like Criss Angel. Instead, Sparks ranted against people who miss his short hair, talked about losing his Kentucky accent, and did a big act-out about sexually peaking. Cathy Ladman hates her New York voice, and Montreal audiences weren't exactly thrilled with it, either. Another trip to the therapist and everything will be OK. Henry Phillips and his guitar? Well, here's a little number you may have heard before, "Sweet Little Blossom of Mine." Todd Glass: I hadn't seen him live in four years, and man, how I missed seeing his energetic self. Glass is a guy who's always on, even when he's not on he's on. What a bundle of fun! Remember when Glass was on Last Comic Standing and kept mugging for everyone at everytime...good times. At the Masters, Glass riffed on both Sparks and Phillips and then himself, and destroyed with a bit about how easy recipes are, such as corn pudding! Meantime, here's an oldie but a goodie from Glass. Thea Vidale and I sat next to each other on the "regional jet" up from New York City, and regional jet means really small plane, which means I actually should have and could have used the phrase, "C'mon and sit on Daddy's lap!" And Billy Gardell closed by focusing on how kids have changed and how we've all changed because of anti-depressants, with a presence that shows you what a veteran stand-up headliner's set is all about.
Shuttle buddies: Don't know how it worked out like this, because we didn't see other during the fest and came from different cities, but Kent from Ask A Ninja and I ended up on the same shuttles to and from the airport in Montreal. Serendipity?
But what about next year: What about 2009? As noted or hinted at previously, several industry folks grumbled openly about wondering why they'd come to Montreal again in the first place. The festival certainly didn't dispel stereotypes about the friendliness of French Canadians, as they tried every manner in the book to get industry up to Montreal -- including their annual withholding of the New Faces and Masters names until two days before most would arrive, adding this two-day Just Comedy confab and charging industry $500 to show up -- then giving industry folks multiple hassles once they made it to Montreal. And that's not to mention the outrageous prices in the Hyatt Regency ($3 for a Coca-Cola, $10 for a bottle of beer), the attitude of the Hyatt toward the industry (even though the festival encouraged them to stay in the Hyatt) and the fact that some Hyatt workers were picketing outside made for a big barrel of not-fun. Stanhope wasn't the only one to openly ask if Montreal has become more about making a profit off of comedy fans and less about being a place for discovering and launching comedy careers. So what will happen in 2009 when JFL joins up with TBS to host a comedy festival in Chicago the month before Montreal? Will the industry go to Chicago and skip Montreal entirely? It only served to make me miss the atmosphere in Aspen, a festival run by people who really wanted it to be a home for the comedy industry (even if it proved too expensive and snowy). It also makes me want to start up my own comedy festival, a true showcase to bring industry to the talents worth watching, both new and old. If anyone wants to help me make that come true, please holler my way. Thanks.
It's the second week of the 2008 Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, which means we finally learn the identities of this year's crop of New Faces and Masters to perform later this week. Much more to come, as I'll be reporting from Montreal starting on Wednesday. For now, though, let's deliver some names and congrats to all! Links available via the JFL MySpace blog post.
New Faces Montreal, 2008: Brendon Walsh, Tu Rae, Ira Proctor, Seaton Smith, Chuck Watkins, Sean Patton, Vanessa Fraction, Erik Griffin, Mo Mandel, Harris Wittels, Mike Palascak, Iliza Shlesinger, Jeff Dye, Kenny Johnson, Chelsea Peretti, Anjelah Johnson, Trevor Boris, Jamie Kilstein, Nate Bargatze, Malik Sanon.
Masters Montreal, 2008: Billy Gardell, Todd Glass, Thea Vidale, Henry Phillips, Hal Sparks, Kevin Brennan, Henry Cho.
Billy Gardell is so much of a Billy and not just a Bill (or a Will or a William) that in each of his previous three co-starring roles on primetime television (My Name Is Earl, Heist, and Yes, Dear), even his character's name has been Billy. Gardell has been a fixture on the recent Jameson Irish Whiskey Comedy Tours.
If you're in Nashville, you can see him live at Zanies this weekend. Tonight, his half-hour Comedy Central Presents debuts. Here's a clip!
More clips and interview footage after the jump. And don't think I wouldn't notice your redesign, comedycentral.com! Looking good.
Recent Comments