The members of Human Giant (Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer) started showing off some upcoming video from their upcoming second season last night at the UCB. I’m going to list some of what I saw last night, but without giving away what you’ll be enjoying in March (unless of course, for some bizarre reason, one of these very funny sketches didn’t actually make the show.)
Paul gets some news from his grandma… from the future.
Rob as a man who gets web fame for cutting off his penis and then discovers his video isn’t as popular as the slapdash videos of a guy (Aziz) making funny faces.
Osama Bin Diesel (Andy Blitz) explains, ad infinitum, how though he, Vin Diesel, got bit by a radioactive Osama Bin Ladin and received the beard and the camo jacket, he did not gain the love of terrorism. Rob shared how they tried to get the real Vin Diesel to appear in only the black-and-white flashback of this sketch, requiring no lines from the actor. Rob was turned down by his agent, who said “Sorry. This one is NOT for the Diesel.”
Paul gets a job. A job eating corn chowder. Rob Riggle, as his boss, explains how that could be possibly be profitable to Aziz and Rob. “Money and Corn Chowder. It’s connected.” The in and outs of Paul’s employment and his boss were the subject of two more videos.
The night also had guest stand-up appearances from Jessi Klein, Todd Barry, Nick Kroll and Demetri Martin. Todd Barry had great fun at the Human Giant’s expense, making fun of the temporary graphics that made up the sketches. He asserted, “am I going out with temp punchlines?” beat “probably.” Barry got a fair amount of mileage from it - at one point noting he only had done one joke in his first six minutes. Demetri, who noticed people might be recording his set with their cell phones, asked them to keep it to 30 seconds as he was doing some new jokes. He showed off a few leaflets he made. My favorite:
Found: One Cat. Looks delicious. Call by Friday otherwise don’t bother.
If you want get a premiere of some of what Human Giant’s second season, the group is showing more sketches every Monday nights at 11PM at the UCB. Get tickets as soon as they become available, because they do sell out. Admission is free save for putting whatever you want to give in the ol’ Bucket of Truth.
Some other good news: material from Human Giant’s brilliant 24-hour takeover of MTV will make their upcoming Season One DVD. That marathon had appearances by nearly everyone revered in comedy circles. A full list can be found on the Human Giant blog. Mouth watering, isn’t it? Can’t wait ‘til March. If you’re intrigued, the first season DVD of Human Giant is available for pre-order on Amazon.
The second season of David Wain’s show “Wainy Days” just began yesterday. If you were like me yesterday and hadn’t watched any of the episodes, you’ve been (and I was) missing something. I watched all eleven in a row and gradually found myself falling for its non sequiturs, bizarre choices and playfulness.
The show revolves around Wain’s dating life, and though he supposedly found the girl right under his nose (his real life girlfriend Zandy) at the end of the first series, the reset button is pressed very quickly here.
To me, its more of an evisceration of comedy audiences than SNL itself. Do you think if legalize pot in this country, that would stop the “Woo!” you get every time from an audience at it’s very mention?
Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford are hooked up with SuperDeluxe to document their 2007 Comedians of Comedy tour - a la the movie and the TV show. Except it’s more mockumentary than documentary this time, with semi-staged bits from behind the scenes. Here’s the first from Seattle.
I could never do what Maria just did there. Blech.
For almost five years in Los Angeles, Scott Aukerman and BJ Porter have been putting on a show called Comedy Death Ray. The live show is revered in comedy circles for bringing up some of the new favorites of stand-up, many of which get their first exposure to a bigger audience on Death Ray. The show also allows some very funny people like Zach Galifianakis, Doug Benson and Todd Glass a place to experiment and play. Just this week, Comedy Central Records released a double CD set of Comedy Death Ray featuring two different shows with two distinct flavors. Besides being performers, Aukerman and Porter have written for sketch comedy shows like Mr. Show and have an upcoming pilot for Fox called The Right Now Show that just happens to be taping tonight. I talked about both projects with the pair along with the dangers of self-indulgence and the need to stay a little silly.
I’m in New York, so I’ve never actually seen a Comedy Death Ray show.
BJ: Holy… you should kill yourself. No, we taped it.
That’s what’s cool to me. It’s often that these seminal shows are lost to history. People will say you should have been there with the Ding Ho or Luna Lounge. There’s no Ding Ho CD or Luna Lounge CD.
BJ: Or Dane Cook’s bedroom when we opened his mouth, basically.
Scott: You should have been there…
The man is an entertainer.
BJ: That’s a wise start. Shitting on the people on our label.
I don’t think Dane Cook’s going to do another CD on Comedy Central Records.
Scott: I’m sure they still sell the old ones though.
True. How are you putting it together for someone like myself who has never seen a Comedy Death Ray show?
Scott: I would say we had two goals when doing this CD. The first goal is to introduce people who have never seen the show before to the best comics that are on the show. And goal number two is to introduce people that they never heard of before and give you a bit more flavor of what the show is actually like.
And those goals are very much in line with the philosophy of the show from the very beginning. It’s the very best people who are out there…
BJ: Mixed with newcomers.
That’s something I really love, because a couple of these people aren’t often in NY and don’t have their own CD. So I can take that track and say, “Here’s this guy I like” to a friend.
BJ: There’s two different disks recorded at two different shows. And they’re two very different shows. The San Francisco disk was in front of 450 people and was a real professional show where people did their best stuff. So to some people that’s going to be their favorite disk.
The second disk was taped at our all-night anniversary show. And some of those sets are taped at like 4:30 or 5 in the morning, when people are a little groggy and not doing what they would do if they knew it was being recorded. That said, that disk has an entirely different flavor. It’s more experimental. It has more of the newcomers on it. It has people doing stuff that you won’t see on Comedy Central or HBO specials.
The second disk, as somewhat of a comedy snob, is the purer disk. Like Zach Galifianakis’ “Live at the Purple Onion” DVD, not necessarily is it going perfectly, but you get that sensation of what it’s like to be at a live show.
BJ: Brian Posehn went up at 4:45 in the morning. And he gets lost at a certain point. I don’t know if we kept him getting lost on the CD. That joke isn’t as technically well delivered as I’m sure it is in his Comedy Central special. But the whole disk has this looseness and flavor to it where anything can happen that a lot of people will prefer.
I think a lot of time in comedy, you’ll get the end result of a movement. You’ll get SNL but you won’t see Second City and Lemmings before it. And this is a great way that someone can trace someone’s act – “oh, this is where that came from” and so on.
BJ: Then there are other people… I read a review of it today and the guy only liked disk 1. And he was disappointed that Patton Oswalt’s bit was something he had heard before. He only wanted the famous people. He’s like, “Disk 2 is horrible. I don’t know any of these people.”
In three years, he’ll put that same disk back in and go…
When you’re at comedy festival and seeing a lot of shows - sometimes three a day - you miss talking about a couple that were exceptional. I feel a little negligent that I didn’t talk about the Kids in the Hall Just for Laughs reunion show the next day. I’m making up for it now.
The material was all brand new - 90 minutes worth. Most of it was fantastic, showing their instincts to be as sharp as ever. My particular favorites were the following:
Dave Foley getting recognized by a fan (Scott Thompson) on the subway - which leads to a surprising joke about the late Phil Hartman.
Foley and Kevin MacDonald arguing over who their imaginary girlfriend loves the most.
Kevin MacDonald vamping with a song that’s only 3/4ths written, including a missing guitar solo.
Mark McKinney and Bruce McCullough as a husband and wife seemingly oblivious to their horrifically evil baby and their chosen godparents’ attempts to escape caring for the child. (BM: “But you do crack socially.” MM: “You’re trying to be responsible. That’s why we chose you.")
But obviously, recurring characters are something fans like to see. Scott Thompson didn’t disappoint with a fantastic Buddy Cole monologue about Jesus Christ being gay, stating that Christ “wanders with twelve other men, drinking wine and washing each other’s feet. I went to a party like this.” But a highlight was definitely the encore, which brought back the Headcrusher character to decimate the cast for their post-KitH career choices. With the amount of cell phone cameras that went up soon after the character introduced himself, I knew it would make its way to YouTube. Here it is:
Adam Conover of Olde English brought this to my attention. In New York, the Mayor’s film office is/was considering some rather oppressive rules for filming crews - which naturally would hurt a lot of the burgeoning sketch groups in New York City. They made a rap to make their case. Look for cameos of many other sketch groups who also use New York as a backdrop.
Today is the last day to comment, but it looks like Olde English and others’ activism has already had an effect. The commission is re-drafting the rules and when done, will put them up again for another 30 day commenting period. Hopefully, they’ll be open enough that Olde English and others can put their talents to use outside of viral activism. If not, sequel-time - perhaps a R&B riff on shooting in NYC being “Trapped in the Closet.”
Mike Judge tells MTV he's kinda warmed up to the idea of doing a live action Beavis and Butt-Head movie. He just animated a short segment with the duo for the upcoming "The Animation Show."
Andrew Dice Clay: "I think girl comics are doing better than guy comics today. They're more exciting than guy comics." Later, tells interviewer about a girl coming over who a "10-and-a-half." (AV Club)
The good: CBS adds two sitcoms to schedule. The bad: Mike Birbiglia's show appears to have not been picked up. You can watch previews of what they did order.
The members of Human Giant (Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer) started showing off some upcoming video from their upcoming second season last night at the UCB. I’m going to list some of what I saw last night, but without giving away what you’ll be enjoying in March (unless of course, for some bizarre reason, one of these very funny sketches didn’t actually make the show.)
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featuring two different shows with two distinct flavors. Besides being performers, Aukerman and Porter have written for sketch comedy shows like Mr. Show and have an upcoming pilot for Fox called The Right Now Show that just happens to be taping tonight. I talked about both projects with the pair along with the dangers of self-indulgence and the need to stay a little silly.
. Featuring the original Headcrusher sketches, it’ll serve as a nice backwards bookend to the live show bits I’ve embedded above. (The less said about 
