the comic's comic

Comedians weigh in on the 2008 election

Many comedians are using their offstage time to sound off on the 2008 presidential election, now less than two weeks away. The Huffington Post, in particular, appears to be a platform for several comedians...

Larry David doesn't know if he can handle watching the election returns come in on Nov. 4: "I believe I have big jinx potential and may have actually cost the Dems the last two elections. I know I've jinxed sporting events. When my teams are losing and I want them to make a comeback, all I have to do is leave the room. Works every time. So if I do watch, I'll do it alone. I can't subject other people to me in my current condition. I just don't like what I've turned into -- and frankly I wasn't that crazy about me even before the turn."

Michael Showalter wonders why "Sarah Palin's favorite word is "Ahmadinejad"."

Paula Poundstone asks: Is Anybody Listening to Bush?

Will Durst has something to say about all of this Joe the Plumber business that came out of the final debate.

Lee Camp is mocking the McCain-Palin ticket on a daily basis on 23/6, as well.

Max Silvestri and Andy Blitz each have access to new McCain Robocalls.

And on his own blog, Michael Ian Black realizes he must not be a real American, by Sarah Palin's definition.

Stella reunites for New York mag's 40th bash

My Damn Channel, home to Wainy Days, not so coincidentally gets some exclusive access to the reunion of Stella, the comedy trio featuring David Wain, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, as they hosted the 40th anniversary bash for New York magazine last weekend. It is only slightly not safe for work viewing purposes:

Related: NYmag's Vulture blog interviewed Wain about his upcoming film, Role Models. Many party pics from BrooklynVegan.

Furthermore: Stella will perform on Nov. 30, 2008, in Philadelphia at The Keswick Theatre.

More with John Mulaney on TV writing

In my recent interview with rising comedian John Mulaney, we also got to talk about the TV writing he has done already in the past year (before starting work this week on the writing staff of SNL).

Mulaney spent more than a bit of his summer writing for the upcoming Comedy Central sketch and variety show, Important Things with Demetri Martin, still tentatively slated for an October debut. The writing staff there included head writer Michael Koman (previously on staff at Conan), Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, and of course, Martin himself. "It was great. I was working with some of the funniest people I've ever met," Mulaney said of that experience. "The bar was set high. It was challenging. You wanted to make people like Jon Benjamin laugh. It feels good when you do."

That wasn't Mulaney's first TV writing credit, either. "I had done a couple of small projects, and I'd written a pilot for Comedy Central with Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter before." No, not the show the network greenlighted this summer, but a previous pilot project from last year.

Though still relatively young as both a stand-up and a writer, Mulaney offered this perspective on his recent experience with Martin's show versus writing for himself. "It wasn't easy or hard. You could be more comfortable because you're working with other people, sitting around with people you trust," he said. "That was great to be writing for someone like Demetri who is really open to a lot of different ideas...and is extremely hilarious."

Now Mulaney has an even bigger pool of talent to work with at NBC's legendary Saturday Night Live.

Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter tape pilot for Comedy Central

Longtime friends and comedy colleagues Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter will tape their TV pilot in New York City tonight for Comedy Central, called Michael and Michael Have Issues. Free tickets already offered and distributed (sorry for my delay in possibly aiding and abetting your live audience needs). It's not quite a State or Stella reunion, but these guys always seemingly have issues, and they do love to banter (with one another or with others), so expect the snark to fly. The Internet allows me to tell you they had been casting about for people (and by people, I mean actors) to play the roles of an armed guard, and several characters with names. Aha! Michael, Ian Black edition, also told College Humor: "Hopefully that will be on the air sometime towards the end of this year or beginning of next. If not, you can probably find me working as a barista at a Starbucks near you."

Whereas Showalter seems to have had a low-key summer, Ian Black has been seen cavorting on TVs this summer hosting Comedy Central's Reality Bites Back spoof, on the Internet promoting his new book of essays, My Custom Van -- this post for Best Week Ever explores his favorite such vans -- and of course, in person promoting the book.

The Reality Bites Back cast

Comedy Central's upcoming Reality Bites Back debuts on July 17. It's a game show spoof of reality show contests. Meta meta. Michael Ian Black hosts.

Who's going to play? Kyle Cease, Chris Fairbanks, Jeff Garcia, Red Grant, Tiffany Haddish, Bert Kreischer, Mo Mandel, Donnell Rawlings, Amy Schumer and Theo Von. Winner gets $50,000. It's like one of those Real World-Road Rules Gauntlet things, isn't it? Which means Von should win, easy. Right? Bold press-release prediction from our host: “I believe ‘Reality Bites Back’ will do for reality television shows what ‘Alf’ did for extraterrestrial puppet shows,” said Michael Ian Black.

If you hadn't seen it yet, here's a preview:

Gawker interviews Michael Ian Black

Want to know why Michael Ian Black has a beef with David Sedaris, but not Amy Sedaris? Read this new Gawker interview with the comedian.

How did you spend your holiday weekend?

Before we get back to the comedy grindstone, let's recap the comedy news from the Memorial Day weekend...

Dane Cook flew into Las Vegas for three shows at Caesars. He told the Review-Journal beforehand that he not only remained well aware of the backlash against him, but was ready to rebound from it. "I welcomed it," he claims, "because now I'm just Dane Cook. Now it's just about the creativity and it's just about what I deliver on a gig-to-gig basis. I'm very comfortable there." Afterward, he reported on his site: "I've been working on a new hour plus of stand up and although I'm in refine mode its all working very well. I finally took it from a few hundred people to 12,000 spectators and was floored by the imediate respose. I can't wait to tweak it all and add more haha to the flow. LPMs suckasssss LPMssssss"

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported long lines for the comedy tent at this weekend's Sasquatch! fest at The Gorge, and poked their heads inside only for a little bit. Michael Ian Black, performing there yesterday, could tell them that it wasn't the easiest gig in the world. "I was up the same time that the Mars Volta was playing. Here’s what I learned about the Mars Volta during my comedy set: they are very loud and they do not care about me. If they did care about me, they would have been a little quieter because it’s very hard to do my subtle jokes about cumming guacamole with psychedelic Latin rock rattling my proverbial cage." Black is back in Los Angeles where he's hosting and filming a new Comedy Central "reality" spoof, Reality Bites Back.

Across the pond, as it were, Chris Rock set a world record of sorts for performing stand-up to the largest British comedy audience, at 15,900 fans. That Guinness has a separate world record category for British comedy audiences is peculiar, to say the least. They don't do that for everything else, do they? Maybe they're just havin' a laugh.

Speaking of Brits havin' a laugh, Ricky Gervais popped down to New York City for the weekend amid his final week of shooting for his directorial debut, This Side of the Truth. His blog has all of the updates and photos, and he expects folks watching the BBC will get their first real glimpse of the movie as early as June 3. Sort of.

Reality Bites Back: This summer's other comedian competition

Only one day before the debut of season six of NBC's Last Comic Standing, but right now, somewhere in this country (most likely Southern California), several comedians are competing in a spoof of all of the other "reality" TV shows. It's tentatively called Reality Bites Back, coming to Comedy Central on July 17 (same night as the return of The Gong Show with Dave Attell). It's a real competition modeled after parodies of actual "reality" TV contests. As the show's initial online home says, it'll include competitions such as "Are You Smarter Than A Monkey?," "So You Think You Can Dive!," "Almost American Gladiators" and "The Amazing Disgrace."

Michael Ian Black is hosting. Competitors include Donnell Rawlings, Kyle Cease and Theo Von. Von, as you may recall, first came to our collective attention on MTV's The Real World.

More importantly, though, there are seven other comedians taking part in this show. Do you know anyone competing? Please tell us!

UPDATED: You can see who's in it from this preview clip.

Comedy Central's 2008/2009 project list

Comedy Central has revealed its list of upcoming works and pilots under the modest heading: "The Future of Comedy."

Next year, prepare for a fantasy-comedy set in medieval times, "Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire," written by Peter Knight.

The pilots include projects by or featuring Snoop Dogg, Andy Richter, Daniel Tosh, David Alan Grier, Nick Swardson, Paul F. Tompkins, Opie & Anthony, Zach Galifianakis and A.D. Miles. Scripted development deals go out to Bobby Lee, Jordan Rubin, Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter.

And there will be specials. John Oliver's "Terrifying Times" debuts April 20. Carlos Mencia's hourlong "Performance Enhanced" debuts May 18. Brian Regan's yet-untitled special will air in the third quarter of 2008.

Behind the CCP: My First Time

Michael Showalter hosts tonight's special Comedy Central Presents: My First Time, which explores the early jokey jokes and stand-up starts of Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Mike Birbiglia and Bonnie McFarlane. Here, let Showalter explain it.

During the taping back in August, Showalter explained to the audience that this show wouldn't be about comedians losing their virginity, although they would talk about losing their onstage virginity, so to speak. Coincidentally, an off-Broadway show a few blocks west of the Comedy Central tapings in fact was called My First Time and in fact did have actors reading monologues about people losing their virginity, in fact. So any confusion could be expected. Showalter apparently finished fourth in a four-person comedy contest in his youth, and recounted his highway sign joke that he thought would win it all.

Birbiglia reminisced at length about the second time he'd ever tried stand-up, leaving his Georgetown campus for a Virginia bar called Fat Tuesdays. When he arrived, he discovered they expected him to perform for a half-hour. "I was thinking, man, I only have 11 minutes of comedy, so...yeah!" Other tidbits: He had six topics written on note cards to help him remember his material. They said Teletubbies, Cookie Monster, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, The A-Team, Stick Insects, and Slash. He was so nervous he threw up on the sidewalk. Not now. Then. Looking back on it, Birbiglia told the audience, "I think to be a comedian you have to be delusional," because if people don't like your comedy, they essentially don't like you. Also, as I noted in my latest interview with Birbiglia, the show's producers asked him to redo his humming onstage so it wouldn't sound too much like Kenny G. Good times.

Michael Ian Black said he didn't know much about stand-up comedy because all of his experience had been in sketch comedy (The State, Stella). "Mostly what I was doing was conceptual comedy," he said. "And by conceptual, I mean not funny."

Bonnie McFarlane didn't really have any stories to share, instead deciding to go through some of her oldest jokes.

Stella supports Super Tuesday

Sara Benincasa got a gig this year contributing to MTV's 2008 Choose or Lose campaign coverage, which means we're sure to see plenty of comedians weigh in with opinions on the election. Here, she sits down with Stella (yes, Michael Showalter, David Wain and Michael Ian Black, together again) to talk about Super Tuesday, which is this Tuesday. The trio hosts a sold-out benefit concert Monday night at Bowery Ballroom for Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama.

Related: Sara Benincasa's MTV site.

Related, also: Barack Rock.

My year in interviews

Before I get to recapping the year in comedy, circa 2007, let's look back at some of my more illuminating, insightful and interesting comedy interviews from the year.

My sit-down with Ricky Gervais has to take the top spot in my mind, because his strongly held opinions on sticking to your creative guns and not sacrificing your beliefs in your own sense of humor (and humour) are words that any creative artists -- whether they're comedians, musicians, writers or actors -- can live by.

A close second, then, has to have been my September face-to-face with Dane Cook. Arguably the biggest headliner in the country this year and last, in terms of tickets and CDs sold, Cook met me in a Manhattan hotel lounge as part of his promotional tour for Good Luck Chuck. But we barely talked about the movie, instead tackling every question you've probably wanted to hear Cook answer, and then some. He even brought up Louis CK!

Speaking of whom, Louis CK was just one of the many other bright lights of comedy I got to talk to at length in 2007 -- the others included Nick Swardson, Christian Finnegan, Jim Gaffigan, Michael Ian Black, Eddie Brill, Bob Saget, Artie Lange, Doug Benson, Damon Wayans, Charlie Murphy, Frank Caliendo and Tim Minchin. Of course, there were hundreds of other comedians I got to witness and talk to this past year, and hopefully, I'll get to tell you more about all of them in 2008.

Michael Ian Black looks for his demo

I spoke with Michael Ian Black while writing for the New York Daily News, and Black wasn't quite sure he'd be able to sell those readers on why they should see him perform.

He'd just released his first stand-up CD, "I am a Wonderful Man," on Comedy Central Records and was heading out on a fall tour Oct. 7 with longtime friend and collaborator Michael Showalter. But Black, after a rapid-fire exchange to determine that it is, in fact, me calling him at his Connecticut home, acknowledged that he was not sure he was ready for the Daily News readers.

"I feel like my sensibility and the Daily News readers' sensibilities don't mesh," he said. "They may not know who I am, or if they do know who I am, not care for me much...If they come to the show, they'll get a pat on the head, a hug, maybe a dollar. But I'm not sure they really care about me."

Most New York City comedy bloggers love you and Showalter and David Wain, though.
"We represent in some ways the best of New York, which is to say, we’re well, I'm only speaking in comparison to L.A., we’ve failed. We haven't achieved mainstream success in anything we've ever done, and in New York, that's sort of considered a badge of honor. You can hold you head high that you've failed in every single thing that you've done. You can't do that in L.A. But here it's a badge of honor...honestly, though, all I want to do is sell out."

Doesn't Comedy Central Records count?
"You think records sell?"

Maybe you just need to Dane Cook it up?
"I can't. I like Dane Cook, but I can't do what he does, which is be successful. When you open your album screaming 'White power, yay!" that's not a sign of success."

He then brings it back to us.
"Cops read the Daily News. Not my demo. Although you'll see some cool cops."

I mention running into a couple of cops while reporting a story today about filming the new George Clooney and Brad Pitt film in Brooklyn. He says he could never be like them because they're successful. I suggest he could be a sidekick in one of their movies.
"At best, I could be Casey Affleck. In my dream world I'm Casey Affleck."

So that's why you have to go on tour, then, to find your people?
"I've got to find my people somewhere. But I don't know that there's enough of them to be considered a people. We’re like the lowland gorillas. Endangered bordering on extinct. My fans are essentially disenfranchised young people, which is what I was. Now I'm disenfranchised and middle-aged."

You're not that disenfranchised, are you, now?
"Well, I am talking to you from my mansion in Connecticut. OK, it's not a mansion, but it's a very nice home, which I purchased with my easy money -- all that easy Sierra Mist money."

What made you decide to pursue stand-up?
"It is a craft that I have long admired and always feared. The reason I decided to do stand-up is the same reason I decided to go skydiving. It was so terrifying that it had to be good for me. When i jumped out of a plane, much like the first time i did stand-up, both occasions I threw up all over myself...But with skydiving, you do it once and go, OK, I did that. With stand-up, you do it once and you keep wanting to do it."

"It's one of the higher artforms. And I know most people will disagree with me on that...if you're a comedian and you go onstage in front of an audience, and perform for an hour to an hour and a half, where they know your job is to make them laugh, that's a mighty difficult task, and when it's done well, I think it's a mighty high artform."

What did you learn from your first stand-up tour with Showalter?
"I learned he needs to smoke every 45 miles. If you're driving. you can count on stopping every 45 miles either for a cigarette or coffee. Not for me. That's all for him."

He couldn't smoke out the window?
"I forbade him from doing it. It's such a pain in the ass to stop every hour."

Unless you planned your tour so each city was an hour apart.
"Yeah, we couldn't do that...well, Tiffany started with a mall tour...Maybe we could go from Waffle House to Waffle House. But then again, that's not our demo."

What about what you learned about doing stand-up?
"I learned a lot about how to attack material in terms of a night-to-night basis, how to alter things, how to listen to the audience, you learn something new every night. You have to remember, I've only been doing stand-up for a couple of years. So I'm very very new to stand-up so I'm very much on the upside of my learning curve -- which is probably not the best time to be putting out an album...But I like it. I'm proud of it. I think it's a good snapshot of what I'm doing, which will be of the utmost interest to my immediate."

How much did all of your contributions to VH1's "I love the 80s" help train you in the art of writing stand-up?
"Zero...you would think I would be able to translate those skills to stand-up...I'm not smart enough. I don't have those eureka moments where I say, 'If I just demonstrated those same skills that i so ably showed on 'I Love the 80s' and showed them onstage..."

What happened with the Comedy Central pilot, "Michael Ian Black Doesn’t Understand?"
"They decided two days ago that they did not need that pilot on their schedule for the upcoming year."

Can you sell the pilot elsewhere?
"I guess theoretically, yeah. But I'm moving on. I'm going to develop something else for them. They're a great company. They really are. I really like everybody over there."

I guess they wanted Mind of the Mencia more, though.
"He's doing something right. I can't tell you what it is, but he's doing it."

Most comedians say being married and having kids automatically gives you more material. Do you believe that?
"I'm just...(sigh)...I don't know...The truth is, I'm really just not like Ray Romano, where my life informs my stand-up. I don't have the ability to look at the foibles of my life and see the humor in it. I look at the foibles of my own life and wish I was dead. So it's different...I just try to write about what's interesting to me in the moment."

And what might that be these days?
"Panty lines. I'm sort of interested in panty lines and why women are so obsessed with panty lines. I guess the thought is, 'I hope he doesn't think I'm wearing underwear.' That's a funny line."

Do you try to write every day or do you jot down things when they come to you?
"Every day I say to myself, I'm going to devote an hour to writing jokes, and then I don't...I'm hoping to write jokes when I'm touring...I'm so busy doing other things that I haven't had the time, and when I say other things, I mean, of course, online Boggle. Writing jokes is really hard, and I don't have the energy to do it -- not when there's Boggle to be played."

Do you carry around a recorder or a pad, though?
"I really have to sit down and just start writing and then I'll go back and see if there's anything that can be construed as somewhat funny that I can go back and make into something larger."

Both Wain and Showalter now do Internet videos. Do you feel that’s something you want to do, need to do?
"It's definitely not something I feel the need to do. Would I do it? Yeah, if I have the right idea for it. I'm so lazy, the thought of devoting a lot of time to developing and making Internet videos really bums me out. If I lived in the city, perhaps I'd feel more jazzed up about it, but I live out in the wilds of Connecticut."

What about your other writing? Weren't you writing for Cracked magazine during its brief stint?
"I was editor at large. I destroyed that just like I destroyed everything else I've been a part of...I'm actually writing a book, it's called 'Michael Ian Black is a Celebrity Very Famous.' That'll come out next summer."

Is that based on your McSweeney's essays?
"Yes, well, I liked how that sounded, it is a funny title, a la 'I'm a Wonderful Man,' self-aggrandizing, that type of thing."

That can still win people over, though.
"If there's enough self-loathing behind it, then yes, it feels funny. Craig Kilborn probably couldn't get away with it. but I probably could."

What is Kilborn up to, anyhow?
"I don't know. I haven't spoken to him in weeks."

Related: His new CD

Related: His fall tour with Michael Showalter
Oct 7., The Gothic Theatre, Englewood CO
Oct 9., Neumos, Seattle WA
Oct 10., Aladdin Theater, Portland OR
Oct 12., The Fillmore, San Francisco CA
Oct 13., Ivar Theatre, Hollywood CA
Oct 14., The Courtyard House of Blues, Las Vegas NV
Oct 15., House of Blues, San Diego CA
Oct 24., Roxy Theatre, Atlanta GA
Oct 26., The Social, Orlando FL
Nov 29., Somerville Theatre, Somerville MA
Nov 30., The Fillmore at Theatre of Living Arts, Philadelphia PA

They're also at The Fillmore (Irving Plaza) in NYC on Dec. 1.

Sierra Mist predicts the future?

One of the funnier Super Bowl commercials this year featured comedians Kathy Griffin and Jim Gaffigan as airport security workers, giving Michael Ian Black the wand treatment over his Sierra Mist bottle. How could they have known that seven months later, you couldn't get soda pop through airport security?

A little eerie, eh? So...is this funnier now that life imitates art? Or just eerie?