The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Rip Torn was not a comedian, per se. Torn was a Texan, though, true and through. Born Elmore Rual Torn, Jr. on Feb. 6, 1931 in Temple, Texas, by Thelma Mary (Spacek) and Elmore Rual Torn, Sr., who gave their son the nickname of “Rip,” which was his daddy’s nickname, …
Kudos to Team Coco for bringing some of the talent they saw in Australia back to Burbank for proper stand-up comedy appearances on U.S. television. And props to Becky Lucas for incorporating Conan O’Brien into her act as crowd work. Great, funny stuff. Roll the clip!
Two summers ago, FOX gave a trial run to a late-night almost live joke-off among comedians called Punchline. It was kind of like Comedy Central’s @midnight, but simpler. Comedians really were riffing off the top of their heads on Punchline. FOX is giving Punchline a second chance this summer. But …
Virgil Films has acquired a documentary about the best-selling Truly Tasteless Jokes books from the 1980s. The film, Tasteless, from comedians Jeff Cerulli and Matt Ritter, will come out next month. Cerulli previously directed a documentary about competitive eaters, Hungry. Ritter interviewed me for a podcast some years ago that …
Kara with a K left much to the imagination during her audition for America’s Got Talent. Not only do we not know her full name, but also we have no idea what else she’s got tucked into her outfit. Roll the clip.
Kevin McDonald from The Kids in the Hall will mount his first-ever one-man Off-Broadway show: Kevin McDonald ALIVE on 42nd Street. It’ll run for only eight performances, Aug. 25-31, 2019, at Theatre Row NYC’s Studio Theatre. “I’m very excited to be doing an Off-Broadway show though technically it’s on Broadway,” …
Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle met in college and became fast friends and comedy partners. But they did not take the typical path from Harvard to Hollywood. Their scenic route through show business included making their own videos before YouTube, to web series for a shuttered HBO website, to writing …
Promoting his new season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, star/creator Jerry Seinfeld decided to tease others who have produced and made their own series that take place inside automobiles. Except, of course, Seinfeld wasn’t first to think of filming funny people in cars, either. Even if you dismiss the …
Lavell Crawford, who burst onto the national scene a decade ago thanks to Last Comic Standing, then found himself a role in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, has lost a lot of weight over the past couple of years. And yet, despite already joking about his weight loss …
Katherine Ryan, a Canadian native who made her name in Britain on the telly before coming back to North America, has her second stand-up comedy special out on Netflix. Although Ryan will joke at length about the lengths to which societal customs, including fashion, pressure women back toward longstanding norms, …
