Day: September 18, 2009

What kind of comedy festival offers free butterscotch pudding to its audience members? And if you're lucky enough to have a wristband like this, you also got to munch on turkey, potato salad and other savories. "VIPs" also could dine on caviar inside a cardboard room?! Then again, if you're wearing a wristband like this, then you must be at the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival! The opening-night gala on Thursday, hosted by Mirman, opened with Pete Holmes, featured videos from Leo Allen, Max Silvestri, Seth Herzog, and Tim & Eric, live music from Jon Auer of the Posies (performing a solo version of Big Star's "Thirteen"), and if that wasn't enough, how about a half-hour or so of absurdity with Kristen Schaal followed by an hour of Daniel Kitson? Yes, you say. Splendid! Schaal opened with a mime routine. "That was me seducing and then assassinating Adolf Hitler. It's a new dance move. I hope it catches on!" She also showed off the trailer for her pilot project, The Midwife, which is quite dramatic once you remove the boiling water; played a live game of MASH (in her Colorado rules, it's MASHO, where the O stands for Outhouse); and got possessed by the ghost of a sexist stand-up from the early 1980s. I'd heard many good things about Daniel Kitson. Turns out these people saying good things about Kitson...

I don't normally write about legal and personal issues for comedians, because they often have nothing to do with actual comedy, and sometimes turn out to be frivolous, and common people will forget the frivolous part but remember the initial allegations. That said, I did some idle searching of Google News this morning and spotted this headline that I thought had to be fake: "Comedian Carr accused of speeding." From the BBC News, even. So I clicked through and prepared to laugh and laugh at this obviously fake satire. Which, of course, turned out to be true? Me confused. Me very confused. There's even a BBC News TV report on it. So for everyone who thinks American TV goes overboard reporting about trivial celebrity nonsense, know that the BBC is just as incapable at times. Bravo. Here, at least, is a video of Jimmy Carr making funny on the British telly about oil, automobiles, driving at high speeds and related things, courtesy of Top...

There's still a couple of days left to enter IFC's Sketch Comedy Challenge. The deadline is Sept. 20. The winner not only gets to see their sketch aired on IFC, but also gets to be walk the red carpet with Monty Python at the debut of their new documentary, Almost the Truth, on Oct. 15 in NYC. Here are some other rules and whatnots… Your submission must be an original sketch, five minutes or less, under 100MB in either Quicktime or Windows Media, have cleared any music copyrights or other legalities. There also will be four runners-up, who will get their sketches seen online at ifc.com and also receive the complete 16-DVD box set of "The Complete Monty Python's Flying...