by Comedy Central has picked nine stand-up comedians for a new special called Comedy Central's Hot List, and if you're a reader of The Comic's Comic, absolutely none of the people on this list will come as a surprise. Oh, you may quibble and say so-and-so is much hotter than who'sa-ma-what'she, or wonder why isn't that guy on the list, but that's like wondering whether Rolling Stone is going to name someone the "Hot Comic" and then rip the "Hot Comic" the next year for no longer being hot (see: Cook, Dane). Or maybe they'll come up with a list of 12 Comics Who Aren't Funny — thank you Newsweek for providing this service! Oh, wait. You mean to tell me that's just a deliberate slideshow trap to generate tons of page views and incredulous comments? Nice try, Newsweek. No. Actually. Not a nice try, Newsweek. You didn't even try, it seems.
But enough about them.
What about the new "Hot List"? Comedy Central must have been reading Variety's 10 Comics to Watch list, then decided, hey, we could do that as a TV show, throw some stand-up footage and interviews in there, and voila: Instant comedy. Their picks for Comedy Central's Hot List, which airs Dec. 6, include Aziz Ansari, Anthony Jeselnik, Nick Kroll, T.J. Miller, Whitney Cummings, Jon Lajoie, Donald Glover, Matt Braunger and Kumail Nanjiani. The press release says the show will interview them, asking them to "one-up each other discussing why they think they were chosen for the list, how they would rank each other, who would play them in the movie of their life and whether the perennial fart joke is still funny." Four of the nine comics are currently on primetime TV sitcoms, and the other five all have current and future TV credits to put on their resume. I guess that makes them show business "hot" by definition. So congrats for being put on a "hot list" for being hot! I guess it's better than getting put into a slideshow for how you're so hot you're not.
What about you, you say? Well, what about you. Comedy Central does dangle the carrot of a place for you on its "Hot List" with its latest "Open Mic Challenge" on jokes.com, which ends on Nov. 18. The Best of '09 challenge asks you to upload up to three minutes of your own original material that you wrote in 2009, and says you could get the chance to have your stand-up featured on the special. Not likely, but you could get that chance. Say what? Eugene Mirman, who apparently is not hot enough to make the list, is hot enough to tell you how you could be on it. Allow him to explain in a short video:
