The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Joe DeRosa didn’t intend to release his one-hour Comedy Central special, You Let Me Down, the same week as his good friend Bill Burr’s new Netflix special. DeRosa’s new hour debuts tonight at midnight. “It’s a real shitty coincidence,” DeRosa joked on the phone with me earlier this week. “I …
Better late than never, Funny or Die inspired a City Slickers reunion and recruited a few folks from Westworld for a parody mashup. Because, of course, City Slickers itself felt like a fantasy camp narrative — but FoD takes it a step further. Instead of Mitch (Billy Crystal) and Phil …
Don’t be misled by the title or the movie trailers. The Comedian, a Taylor Hackford film (An Officer and a Gentleman, Ray) starring Robert De Niro as a former sitcom star and stand-up comedian still trying to ply his trade into his 70s, is actually a love story about second …
Perhaps you saw this segment on last night’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, in which Fallon and his guests Judd Apatow and Keanu Reeves acted out stand-up bits submitted by elementary school children? If not, roll the clip and let’s talk afterward! OK. So you may have …
After cycling through colonels quicker than you get used to them, Kentucky Fried Chicken seemed to settle on Rob Riggle as its TV hypeman dressed up as the late fast-food founder, Col. Harland Sanders. But Riggle’s reign began with the start of the 2016 football season, so it might as …
The New York Comedy Festival has a new TV partner: TBS. After spending 2016 relaunching its own comedy brand — and with it the premieres of Angie Tribeca, The Detour, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Wrecked, People of Earth and Search Party – all ranking among cable’s Top 25 new comedies …
Orny Adams literally was all over the place during his stand-up performance on Wednesday’s Conan. Pacing back and forth across the stage, shaking his microphone (which he didn’t need since he already had a lapel mic on his jacket), and finally sitting on the steps in front of Conan’s desk …
Stephen Colbert is a devout Catholic. Ricky Gervais is a proud atheist. Although Gervais described himself more as an “agnostic atheist” on Wednesday’s Late Show, after Colbert questioned him about his Twitter fights with critics over religion. Can you believe in religion and science both? Why do we have something and …
Far from it, Chris Gethard’s powerful one-man show, “Career Suicide,” will give him his first HBO special because of it. HBO announced the news today. You can hear Chris Gethard tell me about his life and career on Episode #105 of my podcast, Last Things First. And you can read …
Timing is everything in comedy. Including the decision when to record your album/special and when to release. Which really came into focus sitting down to watch Bill Burr‘s newest hour-plus for Netflix, Walk Your Way Out. As I wrote in my review for Decider: In his latest Netflix special, Bill …
