The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Tig Notaro’s “Good One” wound up on multiple best-of lists in 2011. The CD certainly opens with a bang, as Notaro is brought onstage by good friend Sarah Silverman (how many stand-up comedians can match that starpower in an introduction?), and in less than a minute, Notaro has opened with …
Patton Oswalt has reached that level of success where he’s compelled to say up top, “Nothing I’m going to say will live up to that!” to lessen the audience’s expectations. Which doesn’t matter because the opening applause is but one of many breaks during his latest hourlong set, “Finest Hour,” out …
Can you separate the Jim Norton you hear on Opie & Anthony’s radio show from the Jim Norton you see on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show from the Jim Norton you may have read about in either of his best-selling books of essays? Of course. In “Despicable,” Norton’s first CD in …
Jen Kirkman is the funniest person in Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea Lately circle of comedian friends. By a mile. And then some. Kirkman proves that once again (or if you’re not familiar with her or the E! programming, for the first time) on her sophomore album, “Hail to the Freaks,” (A Special …
At the outset of Tommy Johnagin‘s second stand-up comedy CD — titled, well, “Stand Up Comedy 2” — the comedian implores upon the audience: “Don’t suck. I’m going to hold up my end. I’m going to need you guys to bring it also.” And bring it he does. Over the course …
At this point in his career, Daniel Tosh has two different personas in the public’s eye. To strangers, he’s a clever stand-up comedian with observations on modern life and current events. To Comedy Central viewers — particularly boys-to-men in their teens and 20s, he’s the guy they look to to …
Christina Pazsitzky makes it easy to laugh at and with her. Pazsitsky opens her debut comedy disc, “It’s Hard Being A Person,” (Rooftop Comedy) from Go Bananas by telling the audience how happy she is to be in Cincinnati, because it means she has escaped from her home in fake Los …
At any comedy open mic across America, you’re just as likely to see a senior citizen take the stage as you are a high-school or college student. That’s what makes the mic open. But the other night at Philadelphia’s Helium Comedy Club, 81-year-old Arlen Specter — Pennsylvania’s longtime U.S. Senator …
You ever meet someone and want to shake their hand, but do so in an appropriate fashion that lets the other person know that you mean business, but not funny business? In “Squeeze,” a short silent film written and directed by comedian Brent Weinbach, two muscle men (Matt Keirn and …
The second season of IFC’s The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret begins on Jan. 6, 2012. But if you haven’t watched the first season, then no need to fear about tracking down all of the episodes. Because Taiwan’s Next Media Animation can get you all caught up in just a …
