The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Garry Shandling, a great comedy writer who became a greater stand-up and begat two of the greatest most influential TV sitcoms, has died suddenly. Shandling was 66. The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed the sad news today. Shandling had just done some major interviews with other comedians at the start …
Long before Portlandia was jokingly keeping the dream of the 1990s alive in Portland, Dave Anderson was keeping the Rose City weirdly comfortable for dreamers of all stripes. A quick-witted amiable voice for a generation who woke up watching him on TV, drove home from work listening to him on …
Joe Alaskey‘s celebrity impersonations made him stand out as a stand-up in the 1980s comedy boom, then ultimately led to a fruitful career in voiceover work when that boom went bust for so many other comedians. Alaskey took over vocal duties for the late great Mel Blanc and Jackie Gleason, …
To children of the 1970s or 1980s, he was “Schneider,” the building superintendent for nine seasons on the CBS sitcom One Day at a Time. But to children of the late 1950s and 1960s, Pat Harrington Jr. inhabited an even more unlikely character, as the Irish son of an comedian …
Let us take one more look back at the comedians we still love and miss so dearly, who left us in the past year. Jason R. Chin (died Jan. 8, 2015), 46 Taylor Negron (died Jan. 10), 57 Harris Wittels (died Feb. 19), 30 Jenna McMahon (died March 2), 89 …
Andy Ritchie, a stand-up comedian and improviser known for his big heart and impressively unique presence both onstage and off, died from complications related to his brain tumor on Thanksgiving. Ritchie was 39. Born March 27, 1976, in Canada but raised in Minneapolis, where he started performing onstage at Academy …
Yogi Berra has won more World Series rings than almost anyone who’ll ever live, and said more quotably funny punchlines than any comedian who has ever lived. So let’s take a moment to pay tribute to the Hall of Fame New York Yankee catcher who famously said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” …
The Austin comedy scene in the heart of Texas has been hot and getting hotter over the past decade, and in the most recent years, Montgomery Wayne Seitz was at the heart of its growing potential for aspiring comedians, creating an array of open mics and bar comedy shows across …
Gary Marinoff held a bachelor’s degree from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, but when he died last week suddenly from a brain hemorrhage at 56, Marinoff never quite achieved his dreams of becoming “the next Woody Allen or Groucho Marx,” but as his sister, Janet, wrote on Facebook, “he never stopped …
Comedians of and from San Francisco convened on Sunday night at the Punchline to remember Jimmy Gunn, who died earlier this month. Gunn was 50. There’ll be another tribute event on Wednesday in Sunnyvale at Rooster T. Feather’s to #BeMoreJimmy. But who was Jimmy Gunn? A young Andy Kaufman, sounding …
