The Definitive Guide to Comedy
This serves as your very own pop quiz on comedy. In the online series, "Stand-Up Apartment," Brown Levinson-Butler and King Ace are two New York City stand-up comedians who decided to turn their apartment into a comedy club. In reality, it's Greg Johnson (who hosts a Sunday night show at Pianos …
The residents of Seattle got to know the madness that comes from the mind of comedian Brody Stevens in the 1990s when he co-hosted a cable access show and made fellow stand-ups laugh with his regular outbursts at the Comedy Underground. A decade later, he's living larger in Los Angeles, …
David Koechner, that character actor who has made you laugh in many movies and TV guest appearances, got his start in Chicago studying improv at the iO (improv Olympic). Coincidence? Only in that I just spent the weekend there for the inaugural Just For Laughs Chicago festival, and that Koechner stars …
While I decompress and get my notes and videos in order from my weekend in Chicago, let me catch up on the funny that happened in the rest of the world. Which means we have to mention John Hodgman's performance over the weekend at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents' …
Martin Short blew into Chicago this week and created a flurry of excitement with the return of some of his most famous comedy characters, and may have even topped that last night by delivering zingers that shocked the live audience for the taping of Let Freedom Hum, the TBS special …
What happens when a major comedy festival such as Just For Laughs comes to town, only to find the town's major comedy blog is no more? Well, all is not lost for Chicago comedy fans who no have The Bastion to guide them. In fact, the former Bastion editors are …
Robert Smigel began his comedy career in Chicago, and during the 1988 writers strike, Smigel returned to the Windy City and, with fellow SNL striking writers Conan O'Brien and Bob Odenkirk, wrote and produced a revue called Happy Happy Good Show. One of Smigel's sketches portrayed Chicago's super sports fans, …
Ellen DeGeneres taped her third TBS variety special last night as part of the inaugural Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival — Ellen's Bigger Longer & Wider Show will air at 9 p.m. Saturday, June 27, on TBS, but I can share some insight with you already. During a post-show question-and-answer …
Joe Rogan has a new one-hour stand-up comedy special that debuts Saturday, June 20, on SPIKE-TV. Let's talk about it. Better yet, let's talk to Rogan. Actually, here's a great place to start. This is a clip from the special, "Talking Monkeys in Space," in which Rogan talks about how …
Just when I thought we were starting the Just For Laughs comedy fest in Chicago (we are doing this today), the New York Comedy Festival named its headliners and increased partnership with Comedy Central for its sixth annual week of headliners in the Big Apple, this coming Nov. 4-8, 2009. …