The Definitive Guide to Comedy
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 …
Hey comedy fans, perhaps you remember reading or hearing a rumor about comedian TJ Miller and his audition this summer for SNL. Or the "baloney and fibs," as Miller tells me. When I saw him a day or two after his audition, he said he would be more than OK …
The folks at Funny or Die know that Will Ferrell is their star attraction, so they put him in front of a laptop and got him to read some of the many Internet comments directed his way from a variety of sites. Oh, to be a celebrity…(NSFW): See more Will …
Sometimes, the main difference between stand-up comedy on HBO and stand-up comedy on Showtime seems to be that HBO lets you know it’s coming. Their promotional efforts are everywhere. Showtime, you blink, you may miss it. Which is my way of saying a new comedy showcase began last week on …
On the Left Coast, the second week of the 2008 San Francisco Comedy Competition’s preliminaries begins tonight. Follow along here, and here. And here are your comedians for the coming week in and around Northern California: Week Two competitors: Jen Adams, New York; Shannon Gettins, Los Angeles; Andy Haynes, New …
Someone asked me if going first in a contest meant certain elimination. That entirely depends upon a few factors, such as: How proficient your host is in warming up the audience and getting them to laugh, what time your show starts (the later, the better, it’d seem), and how quickly …
Following up on my recap of this season’s Saturday Night Live debut, here is when and where new cast member Bobby Moynihan gets to carry his first sketch as a waiter named Mark Payne who cannot stop thinking about the pepper smell in the restaurant, much to the chagrin of …
Rolling Stone just published online a letter the magazine received from a comedian who appears in the current comedy issue, "What’s So Funny?" And we quote: The issue made me sick. The majority of the people in it are, for the most part, the worst sort of comedy whores, and …
Not all contest preliminary groups in the Boston Comedy Festival are created alike. That's the first thing that has to be said for prelims 3-4 last night. In the late show, you could make a case for at least eight of the 12 comedians to make it through to the …