The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Tonight, VH1 kicks off five nights of comedians and celebrities debating pop culture icons in a new series called The Great Debate. Actually, they just completed a live promotional kickoff event this afternoon in New York City's Herald Square, with Ivy League students taking on comedians Pete Holmes and Amy …
Whereas many comedy clubs across the country went dark for the Fourth of July, Larry the Cable Guy performed to a stadium-sized crowd of more than 50,000 at the University of Nebraska on Saturday night, in a show taped by Comedy Central (allegedly for broadcast in early 2010). Already, however, …
Talk about a fast turnaround. Within a few hours of Sarah Palin's abrupt announcement resigning as Alaska's governor on Friday afternoon, animator Scott Bateman had a new clip online for True/Slant. Bateman also reproduces and reanimates crazy moments in actual politics for Salon.com. If only this had happened a day …
When cable network FX announced its fall 2009 slate this week, it said it planned to pair another new comedy with the return of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in the 10 o'clock hour come Sept. 17. But it didn't say what that comedy would be?! That's a curious move. But let's …
We're only halfway through 2009, but already, methinks we can award the Oscar for Best Misdirection Campaign by a Movie to Funny People, because while everything we've seen about the actual movie suggests that it is a melodrama about what happens when a famous stand-up comedian faces the prospect of …
Two of the more awkward phone interviews I have conducted over the years have been with Al Franken. Just lucky, I guess? But maybe, just maybe, Franken may have been tentative with me all of those years ago because he knew that someday, he'd become a U.S. Senator. That day, …
What's new and making news in the comedy world? Let's take a look-see and find out. Jerry Lewis is going to be making his Broadway directorial debut, a musical version of The Nutty Professor, with Marvin Hamlisch composing. (Variety) Just For Laughs Montreal will hold a "Comedy Conference" for the second …
All of the recent crazy celebrity deaths certainly got everyone talking over the weekend, but the timing of it all overshadowed the death Sunday of comedian and impersonator Fred Travalena. If Rich Little was The Guy in the 1970s and 1980s to get your celebrity impersonations, then Fred Travalena was …
If you blinked in early 1984, then you may have missed The New Show, which was a primetime comedy oddity that Lorne Michaels produced during his brief stint away from the reins at SNL. And how did this show open its first telecast? With a dance parody of Michael Jackson's …
Congrats also go out to Seattle's Kermet Apio, who won the second annual contest for the Great American Comedy Festival, held last weekend in Johnny Carson's hometown of Norfolk, Nebraska. Born and raised in Hawaii, Apio has been working comedy clubs for the past two decades, with a number of TV …