the comic's comic

On Conan: Jen Kirkman dreams of murdering her husband, although the youth are more likely targets

Conan O'Brien misspoke last night. Jen Kirkman's new stand-up comedy CD isn't out until next week, but she is funny, as you can see in this performance of hers on Conan, in which she talks about marriage, murder and the problem with kids who don't want to know about what happened before they were born. Kids these days, right!?

Roll the clip!

 

Four new HBO Funny or Die teasers! Drunk Jen Kirkman; Tim & Eric & Zach; and two more!

I'm very excited about the new HBO series collaborating with Funny or Die, who in turn is unleashing lots of great comedians to do their things on cable TV. Here are four new teaser trailers for sketches from the series Funny or Die Presents, which debuts at midnight Friday, Feb. 19.

The first features the latest installment of "Drunk History," which won an award at the Sundance Film Festival and cast Will Ferrell and Don Cheadle to re-enact the drunken ramblings of Jen Kirkman. She really does look drunk, you guys! Roll it.

And the second clip shows us a reunion of sorts, as Zach Galifianakis joins Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim in a bit called "Just 3 Boyz." Looks like someone really could use a horse massage?

But wait. There's more!

Here's a clip from the short film, "Designated Driver: Office Prank," that includes Rob Riggle, Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel.

And there's a fourth clip. This is called "Hold Up," starring Ed Helms, Thomas Lennon, Malin Akerman, Rachael Harris, Huebel again, and Creed from The Office acting like Creed from The Office. "C'mon. It's open season on jive turkey." Perfect? From what I gathered from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, this one is his handiwork, and also includes Jerry Minor, Brandon Johnson, Ian Roberts, Rich Fulcher and Kate Walsh. Roll it and see:

New HBO Funny or Die trailer includes peek at Sundance-winning short film

There is a new trailer for HBO's collaboration with Funny or Die went online today, and the way this stuff sneaks out in small doses really just makes you ramp up your anticipation for it. Well, if you're like me and like funny things, anyhow.

We already know that one of the shorts in the HBO/FoD series has met with wider approval, as Drunk History: Douglass & Lincoln, featuring Will Ferrell and Don Cheadle re-enacting the Illinois Senate debates as retold through the drunken commentary of Jen Kirkman, won the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Jury Prize for Short Filmmaking. The Sundance guide also reveals another new Drunk History installment on the way with comedian Duncan Trussell getting drunk and talking about Tesla and Edison (with John C. Reilly and Crispin Glover?).

But what else is there? Watch the trailer closely and you'll see lots of hints. Roll it!

Interview: Jen Kirkman gets debriefed for 2009, but what has she done for Chelsea lately?

Of all of the comedians who are part of Chelsea Handler's writer/roundtable circle, Jen Kirkman is perhaps the most interesting. Not just because I'd actually heard of her and heard her stand-up before seeing her on Chelsea Lately, but also because when I saw her more recently in Los Angeles, her stand-up offered something a little different from the rest. Here's a clip of Jen Kirkman via Candor (no embed, because that would be, what, too easy?). As 2009 comes to an end, I sat down at my computer and asked Kirkman some questions. She gladly obliged. This is what resulted from that!

Your chat with Marc Maron for his podcast was compelling. What kind of feedback did you get from fans and fellow comedians about revealing how you don't want to have kids, and/or going to therapy and taking medications to deal with people and the world?

First of all, thank you for finding it compelling. My fellow comedians and friends have known since they met me that I don’t want kids. I sort of defensively wear that posture on my sleeve, for better or for worse. And lots of them agree with that stance and the ones who don’t agree just procreate on their own and leave me alone about my choice. I think once you have kids you realize how hard it is & what a commitment it is. All of my friends with kids say to me, “If you know you don’t want them – good. Don’t have them. It’s hard and the only thing that makes it worthwhile is if you have always wanted to raise a child.” As for fans – any fans I have already know I don’t want kids. I’ve been talking about it in my act for a while. So, I assume they were just bored to tears. I did make some new fans from doing Marc’s show – some people emailed me to applaud me for my choice and my honesty about it. And some people emailed me and made comments on Marc’s message boards that I was a “creep” for not wanting kids. Someone said I was very selfish and that I watched too many Woody Allen movies as a kid. I beg to differ. I didn’t watch enough Woody Allen movies as a kid. I didn’t see my first Woody movie until I was 21. Perhaps if I had seen his stuff as a kid I wouldn’t have felt so alone in the world.

As for therapy and medications – my friends and fans already know that about me. And again a few new fans wrote to me to tell me that they related and then someone wrote Marc and he told me about it – they said I should give up wheat and then I wouldn’t panic on a plane. I can respectfully say – they are wrong. And just to make it clear – I don’t take medication to deal with the world. I find the world to be impossible to handle and because of that it makes it easy to handle because I resign myself to not trying to handle it. I only take Klonopin (an anti-anxiety pill) when I fly on airplanes to prevent panic attacks. And then pretend I had a funny sentence to cap this all off with.

I saw some of the TwitVids you shot in Australia during your brief week there with Chelsea Handler and the comedians of Chelsea Lately? Did you manage to get outside of office buildings and hotels and actually see some of Australia?

First of all – the best part of that office building was that it was the Foxtel studios in Sydney – and the floor we occupied was set up just like the set of The Office. There were people in cubicles about 10 feet away from us that had nothing to do with show business. All of a sudden, 12 very noisy and boundaryless Americans set up shop just desks away from them. They went from typing in silence to having to hear us yelling words like “pussy” and “fuck” and all kinds of things. The other great part was that there was a skin cancer screening clinic going on in a conference room just steps away from our desks. Whatever company worked on our floor was having screenings all week for their employees. (The hole in the ozone layer is pretty much directly over Sydney so they are really careful there about sun exposure.) And people would walk by our desks saying, “Is this where I get screened for skin cancer?” And the loveable idiot dudes I work with would always say, “Yeah, take off your clothes.” They were kidding and would never let it get to the point of people undressing but we forget in real life that the comment itself is offensive. And one of the girls in the office would always end up saying to the person, “He’s kidding. The skin cancer screening is that way. Sorry, we are Americans visiting on a stupid TV show.”

But yes, we did manage to not be in the building for at least 60 percent of the trip. We went out to great restaurants and pubs and clubs nightly. Australia is weird about drinking. If you go to a nightclub – they have security cameras that measure your every move, starting with watching you get out of a cab. A few times bouncers said to us, “You are too drunk to come in.” Every time that happened, none of us were drunk or even buzzed – sometimes we were completely sober. But if they saw you do anything weird getting out of a cab, they take it as a sign of intoxication and won’t let you in because they have trouble there with bar fights. So because we were stupid Americans who didn’t understand the Australian currency – we’d be exiting a cab and fumbling with our change, trying to read it, “Is this a dollar or a quarter?” - that type of stuff, which read as ‘drunk.’

We also got to take a yacht around Sydney Harbour for two days and that was the best. It’s a wealthy place. The architecture and real estate is insane there. Beautiful. Even the bad areas of town look like America’s good parts of town. I will say that the service at restaurants and bars is SLOOOOW. If you order a margarita – you might as well order two at once because it takes 25 minutes to get one and even longer to get the second.

Behind the scenes with WTFpod: Watch Marc Maron interview El Chupacabra (Nick Kroll)

If you're not listening to Marc Maron's WTF podcast, then you're missing out! Fun and interesting conversations with comedians twice a week. In today's episode (#26), Maron revealed his pre-Thanksgiving WTF moments with his mother in Florida, sat down with comedian Jen Kirkman to talk about her personal (newlywed) and professional (writing/performing on Chelsea Lately) life, and also welcomed Latino radio host "El Chupacabra" (aka comedian/actor Nick Kroll). You can listen to Episode #26 of WTF here.

I watched the latter part happen in front of me own two eyes and me Flip camera two weeks ago, live from the garage of Maron's "cat ranch" in Los Angeles. Improvised, all in one take. YouTube allows me to share only 10 minutes of it with you. Are you ready for it? Here it comes. Roll it!

This isn't the first time El Chupacabra has been seen in the flesh. Kroll's radio host also made an appearance on Comedy Central's Reno 911! Relive the good times...