Adam Sandler, Tenacious D honor The Who

While I was in Montreal gallivanting in comedic circles, you may have stayed at home to watch the VH1 Rock Honors for The Who last week. If you did, or even if you didn’t, you may be amused to see the comedians-turned-musicians tune in and turn out in support, including …

NBC’s 2009 late-night TV shuffle

NBC officially unveiled the timeline it plans for shuffling Jimmy Fallon into late-late night and Conan O’Brien into Jay Leno’s Tonight Show slot, which left Leno playing a cartoon version of a TV critic in disguise (pictured!) at the TV Critics Association tour yesterday. That timeline?Jimmy Fallon begins not on …

Posthumous George Carlin CD due July 29

George Carlin‘s final HBO performance, It’s Bad For Ya, will be released as a CD on July 29 on Eardrum Records, the label started by Carlin in 1986. Carlin recorded this show for HBO in March, and he died June 22 at the age of 71, months before he was …

Review: Russell Brand’s NYC debut

Russell Brand‘s show proved the toughest ticket in Montreal last week, but would Americans (and our ex-pats) react with similar enthusiasm to his New York City debut? Brand’s first two shows, Sunday-Monday at the 600-seat Blender Theater at Gramercy, served as a promising introduction for the comedian who already is …

Montreal 2008: New Faces 2

Is it possible for the host of New Faces to bomb? If your name is Dana Gould and the show in question happened Saturday night, then yes, very much so. Word on the street had it that both groups of New Faces felt more at ease in their second go-arounds …

Montreal 2008: Stiles and Proops Unplanned

Anything and everything is up for grabs in the hour-plus riffathon here in Montreal called Stiles & Proops: Unplanned. As the sign behind Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops reads: "Two Guys. One Sofa. No Script." Both skilled improvisers, Stiles and Proops have no problem carrying a conversation and letting it …

Montreal 2008: Flying Solo reviews

After running around the city on Wednesday night, I decided to make my Thursday much easier to digest by camping out at Theatre Ste-Catherine for three of the Flying Solo one-man shows, which just so happened to feature revered comedians Mike Birbiglia, Brendon Burns and Patrice Oneal. It’s a narrow, …

Interview: Russell Brand

This week’s issue of Time Out New York, out today, includes my new interview with British comedian Russell Brand, who just so happens to be arriving in Montreal today for Just For Laughs hot off sparking a new controversy over in the U.K. Coincidence? I’ll have to ask Brand about …