Jan062006
Filed Under Stand-Up Comedy
“January is Stand-Up Month” proclaims Comedy Central, with a big feature their annual online Dane Cook-takes-first-again Stand-Up Showdown. I doubt Dane Cook will be ousted this year… his huge fanbase is already getting the word with his big flash-intensive website asking them to vote for him right in the loading message.
A bit more interesting is that two of the more prominent comics in the current top 25 disliked their Comedy Central Presents performances - Patton Oswalt and the late Mitch Hedberg. Patton in talking about the forthcoming DVD of his one-hour special “No Reason to Complain”
said:
...they’re putting my half-hour special [from 1999] on my DVD. I’m going to have a thing on my website saying, “If you want to see how NOT to do a stand-up special, I’m including this bonus feature: a bad stand-up special,” which is what my half-hour is.
And Mitch described how much his performance had to be edited:
[The editors] changed a guy yelling, “You ain’t Chris Rock!” into “Encore! Encore!” That’s how bad it was. It was a weird experience. I wanted to bury that thing.
He later states that the sweetening made the show work. Even if they weren’t in love with their performances, they definitely deserve votes anyway - the Showdown’s more of a quick popular vote on who’s funny now than a measure of the stand-up performances themselves. But when you watch the full countdown on Sunday, January 29th and wonder “how did this comic ever get this high in the countdown?” - maybe their fans just love ‘em despite their off night.
Jan052006
Filed Under Humor Magazine
Recently, Cracked hired Jay Pinkerton from the National Lampoon to consult on their burgeoning website. Pinkerton has done some great stuff online. I first became aware of him when his silly-filthy remixes of the Spider-Man comic strip went viral last year. He’s definitely a great hire, like previous acquisition Neal Pollack, though I’m not sure exactly where their two sensibilities intersect (save for each writing for McSweeney’s).
Though supposedly focusing on the web, Pinkerton posted on Cracked.com’s message board and asked visitors what they wanted to see in a humor magazine. To give some context, later in the same thread, Pinkerton classifies humor magazines into four categories: Lad (Maxim, Stuff), Catty (Spy, Radar), Ironic (McSweeney’s) and News (Onion), different directions from the one Cracked once was - Comic-based (Mad). The responses to the thread are interesting and I’m hard pressed to see much of a concensus other than a fair amount of calls for a redesign and the dropping of the mascot, Sylvester P. Smythe.
Print humor magazines have been pretty difficult to maintain in the marketplace… the only one with any longevity has been Mad and, arguably, Cracked, simply because their audience has always been younger kids, a constantly renewing resource that doesn’t have aspirational expectations from a magazine, nor the fickleness of hip. When they’re older, a fair amount grow out of it and the next set of kids discover the mag.
The Comedy lifestyle approach that Cracked has talked about taking is a real smart one - hopefully they can find a line that appeals to both the layperson and the comedy nerd. An argument might be made for focus grouping something to death, but I think getting insight on what’s appealing to the most interested/obsessed (afforementioned comedy nerds) is a good start for something that seems a fragile as a print humor mag. If you know what will make you plunk down $5 at the newsstand for the humor magazine, you should definitely post on their message board. The revamped magazine’s first new issue arrives in January.
Full disclosure: I was a former editor at Cracked in the 90s and have talked with the new management about working with them, but with no real agreement. I do plan on submitting material to the publication.
Jan042006
Filed Under Animation
Those who wondered if Isaac Hayes was offended by the recent South Park episode on Scientology, the AV Club interview with the man himself clears things up:
“I talked to Matt and Trey about that. They didn’t let me know until it was done. I said, “Guys, you have it all wrong. We’re not like that. I know that’s your thing, but get your information correct, because somebody might believe that shit, you know?” But I understand what they’re doing. I told them to take a couple of Scientology courses, and understand what we do. [Laughs.]”
So that would be a “no.” A Scientologist a model for how others should handle religious satire - the mind boggles!
Jan032006
Filed Under Sitcom
Last night’s episode of Arrested Development “Save Our Bluths” was the most brilliantly self-referential comedy I’ve seen since the last episode of Strangers with Candy (which saw Flatpoint High nearly replaced with a Strip Mall). References included winks to Showtime saving them, to the common complaint that the characters aren’t “sympathetic and relatable” and, of course, to the “Save Our Bluths” campaign, unfortunately ending the url with .org, which is currently unoccupied, rather than the real renewal drive’s .com.
Though the episode played with a ton of gimmicky twists TV shows attempt for viewers, including 3-D, broadcasting live, and teasing a death that later turns out to be one of an inconsequential character, the refutation of such desperate ploys in the coda was so perfect. The Bluths were rescued from their financial troubles because they weren’t desperate, almost a promise from the show writers were not going to compromise in these potentially final episodes. They’ll keep making the wonderfully and playful layered stories they’ve been doing since the beginning. They aren’t going to flail for an audience. They’re going to enjoy the one they got, even if it’s only for the four episodes remaining in their order. “Save Our Bluths” was the perfect argument for why that enjoyment shouldn’t stop now.
Arrested Development airs Mondays at 8PM on Fox, except for the next two weeks, when Fox preempts it for other shows. Sigh.
Dec302005
Filed Under Animation
The Catholic League has issued a press release commending Comedy Central for pulling the South Park episode “Bloody Mary” and in the same sentence, calling the creators of the episode “bigots.” The Catholic League furthermore claims that Comedy Central’s Executive VP of Corporate Communications Tony Fox stated that there were no plans to rerun to episode. My previous assumption that the episode’s reairing was delayed by the proximity of the holidays was erroneous.
South Park fans are a little uncertain about how they feel, considering a previous episode “Jared Has Aides” was never aired again, only to see the light of day again on the South Park Season 6 DVD
. Since the Catholic League’s original demand was for the episode to never appear again on-air or on DVD, fans might want to assume the worst.
Comedy Central’s Viewer Comments Web Form
If you want to see the episode, it is available via BitTorrent at mrtwig.
Dec282005
Filed Under Animation
Boing Boing has reported that a South Park episode protested by a Catholic group may have been dropped from schedule. However the episode, entitled “Bloody Mary”, is on my current cable schedule for 12:30AM, but it’s not on Comedy Central’s online schedule for tonight or any other night in the near future. That schedule, presumably, should be the most accurate.
It’s uncertain yet what exactly is going on. It may not be clear until 12:30 tonight if the episode has been pulled. (My very smart wife, a lapsed Catholic, points out the episode may just be temporarily removed considering how close this repeat airing is to Christmas.) More to come.
Video from the episode of the Virgin Mary spraying blood on a Catholic church official.
UPDATE: “Bloody Mary” indeed did not air tonight. So far, no gloating from the Catholic League. Earlier they did get Joseph A. Califano, Jr., a practicing Catholic and Viacom (Comedy Central Parent company) board member, to condem the episode. He did, however, leave the the ultimate decision to Viacom President Tom Freston. I imagine the repeat airing is probably delayed until after the holidays, and will probably reair at some date after the dust clears (Matt & Trey carry a lot of weight too). Still, if you disagree with the Catholic League, it might be best to write Comedy Central and let them know.
Dec282005
Filed Under Movies, Print
Usually when a novel trumpets that it’s “laugh out loud funny”, it’s the kind of funny where the characters have twisted themselves an ironic situation that’s makes you inwardly acknowledge “oh, yes, the characters have put themselves in quite the amusing predicament.” But no laughs. One book that did live up to those promises was Christopher Buckley’s “Thank You for Smoking”
. There’s many hysterical scenes in that book, including (spoiler) an attempt to kill a tobacco lobbyist with nicotine patches (a bit NewsRadio, another old favorite, concurrently did). So I’ve had high expectations for the film adaptation, and even with the bidding war from this year’s Toronto Film Festival, I’ve been waiting for a preview that shows they didn’t fuck it up.
The first trailer gave me a lot of hope. Aaron Eckhart appears to have a perfect handle on the sincere insincerity required for a lobbyist of an addictive, killing product. Writer and director Jason Reitman seeming to laying out great material grounded in reality, letting the exaggerations play subtly. No release date is set yet, but it’s be sometime after Sundance, as it’s an official selection of the festival.
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