Dane Cook lines up new arena tour; new to Twitter/YouTube?!

Dane Cook announced a new arena tour that launches this spring in North America and eventually goes abroad. So I guess all that talk about going small with Isolated Incident was just talk. Speaking of his upcoming new DVD/CD, Isolated Incident, word from Comedy Central says he taped the special in front of 400 people at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood — not the audience of 20 that was advertised in an early video. Which leads me to believe that the small audience work was done as Cook led up to his special and will be included in some documentary form on the DVD, rather than being the special itself (because recording a special for an audience of 400 isn't quite as unique as the press makes it sound). That said, I'm still looking forward to seeing what Dane Cook has up his sleeves this time, based upon the guy I talked to after his show in November.

Tickets for his Global Thermo Comedy Tour (a nod to WarGames) go on sale to the public on Friday, March 13, though they're already available as a pre-sale if you can "guess" the secret password already listed on Ticketmaster.com as SUFI.

As Cook said on his site earlier this week: "Taking this new tour around the world is a desire I've wanted to fulfill for sometime now, based on the tremendous response I received during the select few dates I have done internationally. To travel the globe and see beautiful places, while entertaining fans from every corner of the earth is massive. I promise tons of special surprises while looking forward to performing around 100 shows over the next year, and in the process I expect to rack up some serious frequent flyer miles."

In related news, it's more than mildly interesting to me to see how Dane Cook responds to trends in technology, seeing as how he got his big break in the industry by capitalizing on social networking and building fan loyalty. Sure, he has 2.47 million friends on MySpace, but what does that mean in 2009? The guy was on top of the comedy world, both in terms of sales and trendspotting in 2006. This year? Dane Cook just joined Twitter in the past month. Believe it. And Dane Cook's YouTube page? He told his 31,000 Twitter followers overnight that he'd soon get around to updating that site, which has two videos as of today. Dane Cook also signed up for a Qik page to provide streaming video to fans. Does this all matter? Maybe, maybe not. But like I mentioned a few sentences ago, as the comedy industry adapts to a world in which we're interacting more and more through technology, it's more than mildly interesting to see Dane Cook of all comedians playing catch-up.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

View all posts by Sean L. McCarthy →