the comic's comic

Preview one-liner quip clips from the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff

The Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff taped on Sunday night in Los Angeles, and will air on Aug. 15, 2010, and to get us more interested in actually watching the darned thing, the network has produced some one-liner clips of quips from the dais.

Would you like to see Seth MacFarlane do his "Stewie" voice to talk about Pam Anderson's breasts, or Whitney Cummings slam Lisa Lampanelli, or Lampanelli slam the Hoff, or Jerry Springer slam the Hoff, or Greg Giraldo and Jeffrey Ross take on MacFarlane? Well, then click click on this vid vids. We'll start with Ross, because he is our generation's Roastmaster, no matter what Comedy Central says, and since he takes down MacFarlane for something he should be taken down for, if he ever submits to a full Roast himself, so roll the clip!

And here are the rest...

Target of future roast to serve as roastmaster for Comedy Central's Roast of David Hasselhoff

Comedy Central announced today that Seth McFarlane, who himself should and will be roasted someday by Comedy Central, would get to be a Roastmaster first in heading up the dais for next month's Roast of David Hasselhoff.

Jeffrey Ross, who has "The Roastmaster" as an official nickname, will be watching from the dais and drawing up his first draft of roast jokes about McFarlane while zinging the Hoff, alongside comedians Greg Giraldo, Lisa Lampanelli and Whitney Cummings. Past, present and future Roast targets also will be represented onstage in the likenesses of Pamela Anderson, Hulk Hogan and Jerry Springer. Go figure.

The roast airs Aug. 15 on Comedy Central.

Shatner and Seth MacFarlane, animated together?!

Remember how Seth MacFarlane decided to extend his animated brand of comedy into YouTube shorts? Well, he's at it again, but this time he's in cahoots with the people from Priceline. Which means, William Shatner? Shatner has done animated comedy before. What do you mean you don't remember "The Gavones"?!? Ahem.

This deal partners up Priceline.com, its "Priceline Negotiator" character and Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, all through Media Rights Capital (MRC). The series of four shorts showed up this week on a new Cavalcade Hulu channel, the pre-existing YouTube space, Priceline and other content providers. Here's the latest one that showed up yesterday, which opens with an animated Priceline ad voiced by Shatner, followed by a short about a gay knight. Pretty much what you'd expect. Roll it!

Here's a quote from the release sent my way: “MRC has been thrilled with the success of Cavalcade. Our goal is to grow the audience and build on that success through our second partnership with Priceline,” said Modi Wiczyk, Co-CEO of Media Rights Capital. “Seth is one of America’s most brilliant creators and the Priceline Negotiator character has become synonymous with pop culture. Our integrated entertainment partnership allows us to deliver new content and allows Seth to do what he does best.”

Previously: I wrote this in 2008 about MacFarlane on the YouTube.

CollegeHumor exposes Seth MacFarlane's secret!

What do you mean this isn't a real thing? The truth is out there. And sometimes the truth hurts. What is truth, exactly? CollegeHumor plays off of FOX's recent night to honor Seth MacFarlane -- which really is every Sunday at this point -- and figures out the secret of his success. Usually, when you make a hit TV show, others are quick to copy you. MacFarlane already has beaten you to the punch. Yield to Zod. (Seth is Zod, and I am Kal-El? Get that Kryptonite away from me!)

And yet. Watching this makes you wonder if this formula is so successful for a reason. The Cleveland Show = American Dad = Family Guy = Seth MacFarlane Animation Domination. Will it always be funny? My head hurts just thinking about it. Am I laughing at this or with this? Satire confuses me today. Roll the clip!

Seth MacFarlane shills for Microsoft; Fox grants full second season to "The Cleveland Show"

FOX issued a pair of announcements in the past day that could not possibly be related. Or could they? In the first release yesterday, we learned that Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane and FG voice actress Alex Borstein would put on a special half-hour, tentatively called Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show on behalf of Microsoft Windows 7, which will air Sunday, Nov. 8 on the network. Then this afternoon, FOX said it was ordering the rest of the second season for FG spinoff The Cleveland Show. Congrats. It seems like that whole abortion scandal is so far in the past now, doesn't it? All you have to do is generate a lot of publicity and agree to get some of that Microsoft money coming FOX's way. In related news, I'm willing to ditch my MacBook for the right price! (Not telling you what that price is, you'll have to guess) And while you guess, here's a clip of MacFarlane and Borstein performing live from Carnegie Hall and telling you what to expect out of them. Roll the clip!

Inside the Actor's Studio trades sex jokes with the "Family Guy" cast

If Bravo's Inside the Actor's Studio wants to be taken seriously, then it needs to stop with some of the silliness (we are looking squarely at you, squirrely James Lipton) and, well, if you want to take a serious look at a comedy, or a comedian, then please do not ask them to reply to your nonsense as their characters, because it's cute for a nanosecond, but not going to add anything to our lives.

I knew that this week's episode, featuring the Family Guy cast and its creator, Seth MacFarlane, would only serve to disappoint -- not because of the subject matter, but because Lipton had four people onstage and the show would not be longer than one hour. No time for any kind of meaningful discussion (not that Lipton was looking for one). In the first couple of minutes, we got to learn just how ambitious and passionate MacFarlane has been about animation since he was a very young child. Time for a follow-up? Nope. But plenty of time for sex jokes?! Yes, plenty of time for sex jokes, apparently. Although there is a Web-only clip in which MacFarlane talks about how he first came up with Family Guy and pitched it to FOX:

In part of the show that did air Monday night, MacFarlane also explained creating the Stewie character. He references The Simpsons, Rex Harrison, and linguistic erections. Note that Lipton also feels like he understands Stewie.

Epic fail?! New York Times "interviews" Seth MacFarlane

Lord knows I have been tough on Seth MacFarlane for some of his recent machinations around his animated sitcom Family Guy, but even I know how to conduct a proper interview. This Sunday's NYT magazine featured MacFarlane in its "Questions For" column, but it read more like "Inquistion Of" or "Dressing-Down For" than an interview. And imagine, this column is what the NYT's Deborah Solomon gets paid to do. If you think that CNN's Larry King Live is the most inane softball session ever, than reading this hit piece by Solomon on MacFarlane is the exact opposite. Wow. Just, wow. What a piece of crap. It's one thing to have him address criticism; it's quite another to (as a friend of the blog pointed out to me overnight) use more words telling people they are unfunny (and questioning their sexuality?!) than words they are given to defend themselves. At least the editors gave MacFarlane the last words: "Oh, boy, we're getting deep."

Memo to FOX: Family Guy already has aired plenty of abortion material!

I have been spending the weekend in Boston with family, and one of the local comedians here claimed via chat that I was dead wrong about Family Guy (regarding my post from Thursday about the show's derivative Emmy campaign) and that the show is funny and I should watch it more. Coincidentally, I just so happened to be up late Sunday night and saw that Family Guy was on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and zipped on over for a look-see, and what should my wandering eyes find but an episode in which Meg announces she is pregnant, cutting to a scene with Peter waving a coat hanger at her, and later, Lois suggesting that Meg smoke and drink more to get rid of it.

The first thing I thought was not how funny that was, but rather...isn't there currently some hullabaloo about FOX not airing a Family Guy episode because it talks about abortion?! Why yes. My short-term memory has been working properly, because the show's mastermind was just talking to everyone who'd listen about that very thing. Here's a video chat with trade mag The Hollywood Reporter from earlier this very month:

And after saying how FOX wouldn't allow this to air, they held a public table read with the cast of the "abortion" episode for TV critics and Emmy voters (!), and said if you want to see the whole thing, they'd just have to go and buy, buy, buy up the DVDs when they come out in 2010.

OK. So the line about China is nice. And if you go back over the last 30-35 years, as Seth MacFarlane argues, you won't find many TV comedies that devote the entire episode to abortions. Except, of course, for all of the existing evidence that this show and this network have had seemingly no problems whatsoever joking about abortions plenty of times over. 

Family Guy's Emmy campaign: As derivative as the show itself?

Seth MacFarlane has been actively campaigning for his Family Guy to become the first animated sitcom to win the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 20. Since I'm not an Emmy voter, I hadn't been giving it too much thought, leaving it to my friends and colleagues in the online entertainment world to deal with instead (prime example: Gabe at Videogum). But when a friend shared this latest tidbit via Google Reader (thanks for the tip, Eric!), well, I just had to watch. MacFarlane has taken to ribbing his competition by creating a separate YouTube channel called WheresMyEmmy. Today's victim: 30 Rock.

OK. So. Yes. He got it right in the end: 30 Rock will probably win. But there's something more disturbing about this, if only I could place it...

a) Is it taking on Judah Friedlander by calling him "Hat Guy"? I know and like Judah, but no, that's not it.
b) Is it taking on Tracy Morgan? No. They say he's hilarious.
c) Is it taking on the promotion of Kenneth's Internet page? No. NBC does push the promos a little too hard sometimes, although said Kenneth page is also nominated for an Emmy. Answers a, b and c are all OK, within reason, because comedians should be able to dish out and receive a little ribbing from each other, especially if it's warranted.
d) Is it because it's a clip that's essentially more about violence than jokes? That is an interesting way to sell yourself as comedy, talking gay baby and dog. Getting closer!
e) Is it because this clip seems like the kind of derivative work that was slapped together with not a lot of thought about content or getting in jokes or anything suggesting that this comes from the minds who make TV's Outstanding Comedy Series? Hold on a second...

Star Trek: TNG reunited for "Family Guy" episode

Wouldn't say I'm a regular viewer of Family Guy, but it's worth noting that creator Seth MacFarlane managed to get the entire cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation to reunite for tonight's episode, in which Stewie kidnaps the crew (in their real-life civilian roles as actors, not in Trek character) and takes them bowling. In this clip, you can see that the actors are more than up for the trekfoolery, as well as a mini-tribute to Caddyshack. Enjoy:

Preview: Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy

Only a few days before Seth MacFarlane's latest animated venture, his Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, debuts online Sept. 10 in Google Ads with an assist by Burger King. Two teasers went up on Seth's YouTube channel. There also promises to be a Seth blog and Cavalcade newsletter. Judging from this tease, the short format certainly plays to MacFarlane's short-attention span, rapid-fire delivery of jokes that you'd find on Family Guy. Do they all work? Um, no. Leading off with a simple play on the famous lyric, "I Shot The Sheriff," doesn't help win fans. But blink and it's on to the next quick quip. They can be offensive. They can be bizarre. In other words, just what you're looking for from MacFarlane, right? Watch this tease for a better idea:

Related: New York Times report on the deal, which puts the BK-sponsored clips into Google's AdSense, which means you can maybe possibly start seeing them on the side of this site's main page? Check back next week!

Seth MacFarlane to produce Google Ads

In the coming year, you'll see three of Seth MacFarlane's animated projects on the TV (Family Guy, American Dad, Cleveland!) and an additional series online -- "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy." But not just anywhere online. It'll be on Google's AdSense! Really. Which means it'll be on my site? Maybe I can start earning some real money now. The New York Times has the low-down, with up to 50 two-minute episodes planned to become animated video Google ads.

Why the WGA strike isn't over yet

Here is a video, thanks to Nick Kroll and the writing of Seth MacFarlane, to explain why the writers and the studios remain at an impasse. Let's hope the Directors Guild's agreement provides a roadmap to compromise. Also featuring Kat Foster (Til Death) and strike-bearded Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother). Another example of Disposable Television. So to speak.

Aspen 2007, the rest of the story

Or a recap of other shows and stuff from Friday and Saturday at the 2007 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival

Stephen Colbert
Colbert received his Person of the Year award from CNN's Jeff Greenfield, as they sat in front of a giant poster/mock magazine cover of Colbert as the Person of the Year with the subtitle: "Not you. Me." A good dig at Time. Also fitting for the Colbert character. He said this was his third time at the festival, but "this is the first time I've looked out at the front row and not seen everybody asleep!" I barely got in, and barely made it to the post-show press opp (my bad on both counts). Very funny and friendly guy. For those of you playing the home game, the Colbert Report writers come up with most of the “Word”s on Fridays, because it can take a while to write the backstory and explanation for each word. Some insightful comments on Bill O’Reilly and Barney Frank. Video tributes from his friends and colleagues. More to come on this in other forums that pay me. But the show was so packed, Colbert made time to give props to people stuck in the lobby.

Fat City Lounge
The title of this year’s late-night show at Aspen, where anyone and everyone can drop in for a few minutes of stage time. Friday night’s hosts Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter joked about the show’s musical theme and riffed on the Irish (hey!?). Charlyne Yi, who played an NBC page on a recent episode of 30 Rock, stepped up first with her guitar and rocked out to a song called "God knows I finished my whiskey." Hmmm. Sketch group Olde English followed with a sketch about the Fernberger family whose condo the troupers were staying at in Aspen, showing off the family's framed photos, posters, paintings, living room chair, track lighting and drapes. Apparently, the HBO folks weren't so happy about the sketch ending with the troupers simulating sex with said items. Either way, what made me enjoy it was not knowing whether the guys really did take these items from the condo or not. TastiSkank brought the funny with songs about "I heart dirty boys," "Hydrocodone," "Please manscape the area," "Oops, I f--ked you again" and "You're the worst sex I've ever had." Showalter had to take off to his other scheduled show, so Ian Black introduced a special guest, screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (as played by UCB's Seth Morris) who read his open letter to Hollywood. Tim Minchin closed the show. In the first 30 seconds, I wasn't sure what to make of this Aussie as he air-drummed, air-guitared and lip-synched. But as soon as he sat down to the piano, everything changed. He can play. He can sing. And he can tell some wickedly perverse jokes. Anyone who can write a peace anthem for the Middle East is good in my book, even if I'm going to keep on eating pigs. So glad I decided to catch this show.

The Winner
After watching the pilot for this new FOX sitcom that debuted Sunday night (twas funny in an outrageous way, although upon watching it and the second episode Sunday, I've decided that it's entirely due to Rob Corddry and Lenny Clarke), Spike Feresten moderated a panel discussion with creator Ricky Blitt, star Corddry and Seth MacFarlane. "It's sort of a Wonder Years starting at 32," Blitt said. MacFarlane joked about drinking so early in the day: "I drink because I'm comfortable being the only white person in this town." Corddry downplayed all of the roles that are coming his way in movies. "Those nine films, they're all like don't-blink roles," he said.

Best of the Fest Awards ceremony
Hosted by Jamie Kennedy, with presentations also made by Judith Light and William Baldwin. Deciding to sit with Shane Mauss and a guy from SuperDeluxe front row center turned out to be a wise decision, especially when Mauss won an award as the best stand-up of the fest (along with Kirk Fox, who got off one of the funniest ad-libs by saying, "William Baldwin's complaining he didn't win an award? He already won an award. He's not Daniel."). For his part, Baldwin kept cracking jokes, perhaps to let us know that he, like older brother Alec, is ready and willing to do sitcom work! At one point, though, Baldwin stopped to look out into the crowd and saw the fro of Eric Andre. Paraphrasing here, Baldwin shouted to Andre: "You were on fire last night. Do you remember? You crashed the party, holding a sled over your head as you shouted, 'Let's rub boners!'" Um. Yeah. I was there. I remember. But most people in the audience were merely weirded out. Afterward, the guys from Super Deluxe took Mauss, myself and Ben Kronberg out to dinner at La Cantina. Fun, quick Mexican meal, and then Mauss and I raced back to the Belly Up for his final showcase.

Group B: Andy Borowitz hosted this standing-room only stand-up showcase. Erik Charles Nielsen went first, and seemed less intense than the first night I'd seen him, mixing up his material a bit. But the audience wasn't quite ready for him, and his decision to back into an unlit corner of the stage during his closer didn't help, either. Alexandra McHale has some funny nutritional advice, but I had to make a note in my notepad to alert Gary Gulman that someone else is coming for his cookie jokes! Na'im Lynn must really have a problem around the holidays, though he seems nice enough. TJ Miller has so many characters in his act, I feel like I'm watching an audition for SNL. To which Dan Boulger asked, "What's wrong with that?" John Ramsey has so many sharp, solid, clever jokes that he must be introduced to Myq Kaplan to see if they'll either become fast friends or mortal enemies. A poop joke as Russian history? Seriously? Seriously funny. Shane Mauss, fresh off his festival win, got to close the show and was funnier than I'd ever seen him. He threw in some old jokes and some rare jokes. And he had the audience at his bidding.

The parties: The Sierra Mist Lounge in the St. Regis provided a fun and comfortable environment to kick back after the shows each night during the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, although it seemed better on its slower nights (Wednesday and Saturday) than on Thursday and Friday, when it got so packed you could barely move. Met some nice comics (Nick Swardson) and even some nice lawyers (Jeff B. Cohen, aka lawyer to the comics, aka Chunk!). A ping pong table and foosball. Dan Boulger thought he had a brush with Cheryl Hines. Only problem was that the parties ended too early, as the lights came up at about 1:45 each morning. Which invariably led to the afterparties.

The UCB "house" was where it was at each night. Seth Morris and the rest of the guys couldn't have been nicer. The basement hopped. Anyone and everyone would show up (see my earlier post about William Baldwin's party reference during the awards ceremony). And our small band of comedians and merrymakers bonded throughout the week, making for a four-day party. Only problem was that we'd have to shepherd each other back up the icy mountain to the condo.

The so-called "mansion," on the other hand, ugh. Took a lot of effort to get there, by car and by foot. And once there, it really was too large and anonymous to have any fun there. As we remarked to each other afterward, we could've had much more fun at the UCB place. Or even at our place.