The Definitive Guide to Comedy
After three decades of stand-up comedy, Bill Burr finally landed “a lifelong dream” by hosting Saturday Night Live in October 2020. He covered familiar themes from his catalog, updated for today. Among them: Earth’s overpopulation, and the audacity of white women. Suffice it to say, people who weren’t familiar with …
The Second City, the venerable comedy institution with branches in Chicago, Toronto and elsewhere, is up for sale for only the second time in its 61-year history. Yes, and? Variety broke the news today. “While all our lives have been affected by the pandemic, The Second City has found green …
Chris Rock hosted the season 46 premiere of Saturday Night Live, and set the tone for his eight-minute monologue, emerging from the traditional entry wearing a mask as the SNL house band was safely behind two plexiglass partitions. Rock quickly de-masked, though, holding it for the monologue, and letting us …
The rumors weren’t rumors. Sacha Baron Cohen really was filming scenes for a new Borat movie this year during the pandemic. Amazon Studios has acquired the finished feature film, with plans to premiere it in late October on Amazon Prime worldwide. Cohen was caught in September performing at a rally …
Sam Jay is getting her own late-night talk show! HBO announced a series order for a weekly half-hour talker from Jay, a Saturday Night Live writer who just released her debut stand-up special on Netflix. The untitled series will debut in 2021 on HBO, and stream on HBO Max. “Sam …
Dave Chappelle’s hometown comedy and music series, which resulted in at least one YouTube Netflix half-hour special (8:46) in June, and attracted all sorts of A-listers to Yellow Springs, Ohio, over the summer, was forced to shut down operations last week due to “possible exposure within our inner circle” of …
Everything’s different about 2020, and that includes the annual New Faces of Comedy hullaballoo out of Montreal’s Just For Laughs festival. This year, with the fest postponed from July to October and going online only, JFL isn’t presenting stand-ups or character comedians. Just the New Faces Creators, the category JFL …
The Upright Citizens Brigade theaters in New York City and Los Angeles remain closed since the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down in March. But the UCB4 — co-founders Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts and Matt Walsh — issued an updated statement today regarding how they hope to make amends …
Late Night with Seth Meyers moves into primetime for a half-hour this October with a special called Closer Look Thursday. It’ll air Oct. 8 at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT, live from Studio 8G inside 30 Rock. Per NBC: “Closer Look Thursday will dissect the events of the day, up-to-the-minute breaking news …
Netflix got Neal Brennan to put together a 20-minute parade of comedy all-stars shouting out comedy (the video is titled, “Hey, Remember Comedy?”) to jumpstart a new BIPOC Stand Up Comedian Fund through Comedy Gives Back. The fund will assist Black, Indigenous, People of Color comedians with their finances to …
