The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Would you believe that Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce wasn’t the moral center of M*A*S*H, the hit CBS series for 11 seasons from 1972-1983? That’s what Alda would have us believe. Here. “I never saw myself as the moral center of M*A*S*H,” Alda told Jeff Greenfield during a conversation Tuesday night …
You’ve seen plenty of snark and bark in the past two days following the MTV VMAs, and particularly about Miley Cyrus and her act-out performance (which she promised in a pre-show boast would be her moment to take the torch that had been passed down before her from Madonna to …
When you become such a beloved comedian that everything you say is amplified — Your essay in response to the Boston Marathon bombings brings us all together! Your lack of response to rape jokes must mean you’re just contributing to rape jokes! Your failure to use the Sarcastica font on …
Speaking of the Peabody Awards… Jim Carrey’s music video this week for Funny or Die, “Cold Dead Hand,” takes a satirical look at the NRA through the late Charlton Heston and how the gun-rights lobby could be so out of touch with reality. It has more than 1.77 million views …
Andy Kaufman’s final passport sits in a glass case, a snapshot of his optimism that remained even a couple of months before he died in 1984 at the age of 35. If it were anyone else, it could be haunting. But this is and was Andy Kaufman, where the definitions …
A few days ago, actor Terry Crews popped up in a new series of videos on Funny or Die in character as President Camacho. Not President Barack Obama, but Camacho, a role Crews had played in Mike Judge’s 2006 film, Idiocracy. Why Idiocracy? And why now? Judge’s directorial big-screen follow-up …
Nick Kroll’s Comedy Central sketch series, Kroll Show, doesn’t even debut until 2013. But Kroll and his friends already had taped a satirical response to Chick-fil-A, whose owner is so ultra-conservative, he thinks homosexuality is a sin. And he doesn’t open his dumb fast-food stores on Sundays, when any good …
You may be familiar with the NPR quiz-show staple, “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me.” But in Britain, they’d already been having fun with the news on a weekly basis for two decades before “Wait Wait” with “The News Quiz.” And with the 2012 U.S. Presidential campaign hitting full stride, the BBC …
One of the more fascinating features of IFC’s Onion News Network is how this fake parody of TV news relies heavily on people with real experience as anchors and reporters on local and cable news programs. Its star, Brooke Alvarez, is really Suzanne Sena — former host and reporter for E!, Extra …
