Analysis later perhaps, but here’s some of the highlights:
July 16th “South Park Live” with both of the show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. It’s more of a look at the actual series rather than a performance of a script.
July 18th Judd Apatow, who will already be honored at the concurrently running Just Comedy conference, appears to be making a return to stand-up with “Apatow for Destruction” which will also feature Apatow regular and Canadian Seth Rogen.
Also on the 18th - The Late Late Show’s Craig Ferguson will host a Gala featuring unannounced talent.
July 19th Not to be outdone, incoming Late Night host Jimmy Fallon will also host a Gala. Talents also unannounced here. Who will appear on who’s Gala? The first step in the Late Night wars?
July 20th A third gala, the All-Star Gala will feature stand-up from Ron White, Paula Poundstone and Larry Miller among others.
Also part of the fest will be multiple performances of the following:
Tom Papa in his one-man show “Only Human.”
J.B. Smoove as part of “Best of Uptown Comics”
Greg Behrendt will host Laugh-rodisiacs, a relationship themed show.
The Ethnic Heroes of Comedy which will include Steve Byrne and Gabriel Iglesias.
Besides his regular “State of the Industry” address, Andy Kindler will host the Alternative Show. Kindler was also described as “festival troublemaker” in the press release.
Greg Giraldo and Dana Gould will alternate hosting duties for introducting the rising stand-ups in New Faces of Comedy.
And of course, The Nasty Show, with a variety of degenerates and hosted, depending on the show, by Nick Di Paolo or Patrice O’Neal
I’m planning a larger recap of the scathing speech Andy Kindler delivered at this year’s Just For Laughs Festival. But for a taste, here’s a video posted by MySpace of the event. Somewhat ironically, I think it gives Kindler a little material for next year’s speech, as much of the video is the very funny “red carpet” bits featuring Greg Fitzsimmons before and after the speech. But I should say Kindler has the best moment in the clip, falling at the very end - a perfect little after-the-spotlight moment.
I was very excited to see this show and it did not disappoint. After David Cross reasserted his place in the comedy duo by winning a dance contest (somewhat to Bob Odenkirk’s chagrin), the pair did a scene parodying the French preference in Montreal. Bob played himself, simply attempting to order a coffee from a barrista who pretends to not know English and then French, pushing the behavior to logical insanity by insisting inside his cafe he has his own language.
Here’s a show rundown:
Kurt & Kristen were brilliant, sharing the invention of the phone by Pocahontas and the transcript of the first call made on it, then performing a live sex act on stage - but not in the way you’re thinking of it. it was set to Prince’s “Cream” however.
Videos from Leon & Andy were played, which I didn’t find insanely funny but they were incredibly inventive - going to completely unexpected places. A mourner at a grave gave way to a skeleton singing a mambo song about not having enough cell phone minutes. Good stuff, I just didn’t laugh.
Hot Sauce had some fun with comedy tropes including obscure impressions (the red head’s boyfriend from Sex in the City) and performing stand-up too soon after a death. But their most elaborate scene involved the breaking of several eggs on stage, the first being the “child” that one member had continued to raise past the high school homework assignment and culminating with eggs descending for the rafters. Naturally, after that there was an intermission.
The pair of women who make up Karla were wonderfully pre-verbal for much of their sketches, emphasizing much more how things are said - a credit upgrade becomes a declaration by the town crier and a repetitive apologetic conversation comes to a naturally explosive angry conclusion. But their last, featuring a puppet entitled Unhappy Ursula was a brilliant little fable about day-to-day life. Not necessarily one for children mind you, what with shitting of the bed and all. Despite that, it was a rare joyful sketch where “pegasus were real, filling children’s hearts with joy - which turned into actual cash.”
The Buffoons were solid, though their first sketch to me suffered by comparison to another comic. In my mind, an effeminate latino accent belong to Nick Kroll’s “Fabrice Fabrice” and nobody else. But other sketches were grand. One featured a pair of construction worked cursing their wives for their horrible packed lunches (which included a Buzzlightyear Pez, a “wacky” pen and F. Scott Fitzgerald “This Side of Paradise"). The second had a vaudeville team which punches their jokes with incredibly hard slaps to the face degenerate from bits into an all out brawl.
I also enjoyed a chance to see some videos fom Straightjacket - a British comedy group that Odenkirk has taken a shine to. Their work is short and punchy, not belaboring the bit at all. Here’s my favorite from the set - I venture to say it was the audience favorite too. It’s called “Font Perv”
The venue for most of the stand-up is the Kola Note. It’s not a huge venue, but it feels frustratingly cavernous when the laughs aren’t big. It seems like a tough room to get momentum in. Top it off with a crowd that’s got a fair amount of seen-it-all industry people in it. (One industry friend here told me afterward that a joke got a “nice” from her. That’s a compliment.) In short, it seems like a tough room.
With my experience in Aspen at the Belly-Up and this, part of me wonders why put young comics through a trial by fire like this. Of course, that entirely assumes that the atmosphere of the show is intentional - but that’s impossible. Comedy club crowds are difficult to predict, but you still have to go out of your way to make a tough room I think. And truly, having be a hard place to perform is, I suppose, the best measure of a comic. You can’t really know someone until they’ve been tested. Tough crowds are as good a test as any.
Now, there was a lot of laughs that night. But it was very rare that it felt like one of the “New Faces” had the room. The two that did extremely well in my mind were Tommy Johnagin and Kurt Metzger, the later being the only comic who earned an applause break. Johnagin hit me really hard with this exchange while making an appointment with his mechanic:
Mechanic: “How’s seven in the morning?” Johnagin: “I hear it sucks. I’ll see you at noon.”
Metzger pretty much owned the crowd by teasing them right from the start, talking about wanting to start off on the right foot and then following it with a bit about “why America is the best country.” Cultural differences continue to play a role as he mentioned a girl was a ten and then asks, “do you have that or do you have metric hotness?”
My favorite line of the night has to be from Tom Papa, who hosted the show. One overcurious audience member queried where he was from, and then why he was here. Tom Papa: “I’m running fom my childhood and seeking the approval of strangers/”
You may have already know this from my “Quick Update” center above, but let’s make it official. I’m in Montreal for the Just For Laugh festival, which is probably the biggest comedy festival in North America. There’s a ton of comics walking around here - names you know and names you don’t. I’m more than a little bummed that I already missed the Comedy By Numbers event for the recent book. But I should have a pretty big evening, checking out the Second section of New Faces, then I’ll be catching the David Cross and Bob Odenkirk hosting the sketch revue called “The Line-Up” - then, if I’m lucky, because it’s looking sold out - The Green Room with Paul Provenza and guests (he did this last night too, and I already have heard I missed something). I’ll have updates on these and other parts of the fest over the next couple of days. If I have something short to say, it’ll be the “Quick Update” box above.
Reportedly: SuperDeluxe to be folded into AdultSwim. SuperDeluxe did some brilliant stuff - hopefully some level of web content will continue under the AdultSwim brand.
Comix publicist Kambri Crews foils a scammer posing as stand-up Todd Barry. Con man, as Barry, claimed he needed money to get his car out of the impound lot. Barry does not even own a car.
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