The Definitive Guide to Comedy
So I’m in Boston all week, which means I missed the grand meeting of the minds when Steve Guttenberg appeared live last night on The Dave Hill Explosion (Best Week Ever documented it for posterity). Hill also likes to produce short videos, and here is a new one that has …
The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards get handed out on Sunday evening (broadcast on the ABC television network), and in the comedy categories, he academy tends to be, well, stubborn? The funniest people sometimes have to wait years for official Emmy recognition, but once they do, they get rewarded over and …
There’s an old saying that goes, if you can’t stand the heat, then don’t become a firefighter. Likewise, if you don’t like being judged, then please don’t become a stand-up comedian, because you’re judged immediately and continuously by every audience you see in the darkness under the glare of the …
When Mel Brooks introduced Spaceballs to his film canon in 1987, viewers and critics most likely did a double-take. A parody of Star Wars? In 1987? And yet such low-brow Yiddish wit as "I see your Schwartz is as big as mine" ran rampant through junior-high and high schools, as …
Here is a fanciful animated short video to keep you company while I prepare another day of comedy news and analysis for you. As I write and research, perhaps I should be watching this, too, since it asks that essential age-old old-age question: What is comedy?
You’ve all been waiting for this (sorry about the wait), it’s the two final preliminary competitions in the 2008 Boston Comedy Festival contest, so let’s get to recapping… Prelim 7 winners: Byron Bowers, Jessi Campbell, Dave Waite, Drew Thomas When Bowers took the stage, he joked about being the fourth …
Amy Poehler talks to USA Today today about her imminent departure from SNL. Seth Meyers says replacing Poehler won’t be easy: "She has a real connection with the audience," he says. "She looks like she’s having a lot of fun, and it’s contagious. It’s going to be hard for one …
Just when I thought I might have to rent the DVD of The Love Guru to see the funny provided by Jim Gaffigan and Stephen Colbert, the fine folks at the No Fact Zone (with an assist from Videogum) have done so for me and passed along this deleted scene …
Before Tim Reid was Venus Flytrap on WKRP on Cincinnati, and before Tom Dreesen was warming up audiences for Frank Sinatra, Tim & Tom were perhaps the first "and sadly the last" black-and-white comedy team in the early 1970s, as Dreesen told the Chicago Tribune. (via Shecky) The Trib’s story …
Microsoft announced today that it was launching a new ad campaign — without Jerry Seinfeld — and that that was part of the plan all along. The new ads that begin today open with a guy who looks like John Hodgman so they can play off of the "I’m a …