The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Andy Kindler becomes the ultimate “comic’s comic” each July when he delivers the annual State of the Industry Address at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. Essentially, it’s Kindler reminding the comedy industry what comedy is all about. It’s a must-see event each summer. And it all grew …
The second season of HBO’s True Detective miniseries anthology takes place in the pits of despair just south of downtown Los Angeles, and so, why wouldn’t there already be a parody centered on the comedy business? This is True Comedian. Written by Andy Kozol and Brian Moreno, featuring Kozel, Moreno, …
Sometimes alternative comedy isn’t alternative at all, but rather an insane looking-glass mirror of what mainstream stand-up comedy is. In Dan Klein‘s “This is Comedy” special, he could have put the quotations marks anywhere, really. “This” “is” “Comedy” “special.” It’s an hourlong take on stand-up comedy from the perspective of …
Just when you thought there were more than enough podcasts that involved comedians interviewing comedians, along comes another comedian-on-comedian podcast — but this one offers a twist. Or two. For one thing, Comedy Bit List with John Heffron, hosted by the former Last Comic Standing winner, airs on Rhapsody. For …
With the PGA Tour back in spring form and the NBA and NHL playoffs in their quarterfinal matchups, it gives plenty of opportunities for comedian Norm Macdonald — late of Comedy Central’s short-lived Sports Show with Norm Macdonald — to offer running analysis and play-by-play commentary via Twitter @normmacdonald. Macdonald …
Famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns made a mini-movie about comedian Eugene Mirman, and what happened next will inspire you. No, wait. I’ve read so many of those danged UpworthyViralNovaBuzzFeedy clickbait-and-switch headlines that it’s seeping into my writing. No, wait. You should be inspired. That’s the whole point of those lovely …
With the Winter Olympics over and out, the late-night TV comedy/talk/variety melee of 2014 begins in earnest tonight. Late Night with Seth Meyers debuts tonight on NBC. The Pete Holmes Show begins a new second season at midnight on TBS, up against the surging @midnight on Comedy Central. And, of …
How would you open a musical stage production about the inner workings of stand-up comedy? Jason Saenz and Jake Young have opened theirs with this little number, “How’d You Get That Show?” Two things to note off the top: Saenz and Young first performed this song live a few months …
Scott Aukerman doesn’t host Comedy Bang! Bang! on IFC, so much as he presides over a circus of characters and interviews that aren’t interviews, to the point where any viewers who thought they’d tuned into a proverbial late-night talk show come to realize that they’ll enjoy it once they embrace …
Look. People are submitting videos this month for the annual Andy Kaufman Award competition (the submission date deadline was this past Monday, I just found out), and I just feel as though in the past couple of years, the awards have become, well, less Andy Kaufmanesque? Less weird. Less special. …
