Bonnaroo is coming up June 12 to the 15th with performances by lots of Dead-Frog fave comics including Cross, Galifianakis and Garofalo. But with Fabrcie Fabrice’s doppelganger Nick Kroll not on the bill, who will handle the craft services for all these funny folks?
Here’s a vid from last year’s fest which shows how good Fabrice Fabrice is at getting those soggy vegetable plates to stand-ups.
Aspen and comedy will keep their somewhat surprising association thanks to the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival, which fills in for the recently abandoned U.S. Comedy Arts Festival run by HBO. The new fest takes place at the end of this month on the 30th and 31st.
I’m not sure about keeping up a comedy fest in Aspen, other than the sentimental and promotional reasons. The place is still expensive. But on the plus side, the fest is not being held during ski season which should help. it also kind of ensures that the people coming are there for the talent, not as an excuse for a ski vacation on the company dime.
Stand-up: Kathleen O’Brien, Tim Ball, Reid Faylor and Mary Sasson
Short Film: Icescraper! by Mark Potts, The Breakup by Amos Vernon, Actor Hunters: Ep. 1 Pt. 1 by Matthew Schwartz and Car Phone by Dan Perrault.
Previously, there was the suggestion that the stand-ups would perform in a show at the Wheeler Opera House in a show headlined by David Brenner, but no schedule has yet show up. (The other piece of news at the time - that this might be a cleaner festival that the HBO one - is also not clear as well.)
While all the details aren’t clear yet, the invite I received from Rooftop did make one thing clear. Right after the award ceremony, they listed “Games & Cake.” Yea! and Yum!
Another installment in Mo Diggs series about the history of alternative comedy as a broader movement, always playing against the mainstream.
New Wave: ‘80s
During the comedy boom, not as many comedians railed against the comedy establishment. The focus was on maintaining a quirky, strange voice. Formal experimentation was at an ebb, but character comedy was on the rise.
The alternative stand-up of the ‘80s was like new wave music: it had it’s roots in the radical experimentation of the previous decade (Kaufman and Sex Pistols, respectively) but it was accessible. Milions of fans enjoyed it.
One-liners were nothing new. But Steven Wright’s flat, deadpan delivery made all the difference. It was as if someone shocked before he was onstage. Bobcat Goldthwait’s delivery was even more unusual. Each joke was delivered in a pitchy, high voice that was interrupted by seemingly unprovoked growls. To add to the overall effect, during Comic Relief III he stood on hot coals while telling jokes.
Other characters would emerge, including Emo Phillips and Judy Tenuta. But Pee Wee Herman was by far the biggest character comedian of the ‘80s.
In 1977 The Groundlings staged a performance in which its members created characters that one might see in a comedy club. Paul decided to play a guy that everyone immediately knew would never make it as a comic, partly because Reubens couldn’t remember jokes in real life - he had trouble remembering punch lines and couldn’t properly piece information in sequential order. Saying that Pee-wee Herman was born that night, his distinctive guttural “Ha Ha,” followed by a high-pitched “Heh Heh Heh Heh,” laugh became the character’s catch phrase, as has his insult comeback “I know you are, but what am I?” (Wikipedia)
If the boom is not associated with great alternative comedy, it’s because there was no alternative. Comedians with distinct voices like Judy Tenuta and Pee Wee Herman could--and did--make money in the comedy clubs that were suddenly popping up everywhere. But when the boom was over, unique voices would need to look outside of the clubs to be heard.
We continue our look at alternative comedy (in the broader, and perhaps truer, sense) with chapter three of contributor Mo Diggs history, this time looking at the 1970.
Wild and Crazy: ‘70s
By the early ‘70s, George Carlin seemed to be spinning his wheels in the mud. Nightclubs like the Copacabana wanted nothing to do with the bearded Dionysian madman with a foul mouth and a distaste for authority. Carlin wanted to play coffehouses and colleges, growing tired of the clubs, but hippie bastions like The Bitter End and The Troubador were also not embracing the new George Carlin (the Troubador eventually gave him a chance). Many hippies thought he was trying to hop on the bandwagon.
The release of his 1972 album, FM & AM, would change that. Spending thirty five weeks on the Billboard pop charts, the album was as important to comedy as Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home was to rock. Much like Bringing It All Back Home had one familiar acoustic side and one electric side, the AM side of the record had parodies of pop culture ephemera. The FM side showcased the new Carlin: the Carlin that talked about drugs, profanity and birth control.
Carlin was now welcome everywhere, including the coffeehouses and colleges that he loved so much.
Carlin wasn’t the only one frustrated with the establishment. In 1967, Richard Pryor (who smoked weed with Carlin in the back stairwell of Cafe au Go Go) was performing in front of a sold-out crowd at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. While onstage, Pryor underwent every comedian’s worst fear: he froze. He saw Dean Martin in the crowd. Up until this moment, Pryor was staying away from race in his act, much like Bill Cosby did (Cosby briefly touched on race in his early days in Greenwich Village, but he almost immediately switched gears). But Pryor, looking at the crowd, said “What the fuck am I doing here?” and stormed off stage.
This was the birth of the new Pryor. The new Pryor would reach full maturity in 1974, with the release of That Ni**er’s Crazy. Pryor didn’t tell jokes on this album, opting for autobiographical stories and observations. Pryor brought the winos and junkies of his old Peoria neighborhood into the living rooms of middle class white people.
While Pryor and Carlin were known for their rebellious content, Steve Martin, Albert Brooks and Andy Kaufman played with form. Steve Martin would tell silly jokes without punchlines. In his most amazing feat, he led an audience into McDonald’s, ordering 300 hamburgers before changing the order to one small fries. Albert Brooks would pretend to be a delusional sideshow act (a ventriloquist that would have the dummy drink water while Brooks was singing was one of his many bizarre acts).
But no one before or after would be as radical (or, in the alternative world, as influential) as Andy Kaufman. As Foreign Man, as “himself” and as tacky lounge singer Tony Clifton, Kaufman’s brand of Dadaist performance art made the audience’s reaction the punchline. Whether he was eating ice cream onstage, telling bad jokes about President Carter or pouring a pitcher of water over an “audience member’s” head (it was often his friend Bob Zmuda) Kaufman would relish the awkwardness that he would create, paving the way for the cringe-inducing comedy of Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen as well as the surreal performance art of Brett Gelman and Reggie Watts (who won the Andy Kaufman award in 2006).
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
Contributor Mo Diggs continues his look at the churn of alternative comedy as a reaction against the mainstream.
Beatschtick: ‘50s-’60s
Time magazine ran an article in 1959 on the new wave of comedy. Entitled “The Sickniks,” the article profiled a comedy scene rife with jokes on sex, drugs and the civil rights movement. Mort Sahl would read the newspaper onstage without wearing a suit and tie, obliterating the comedy dress code once and for all. Jonathan Winters was obsessed with psychosis. But Lenny Bruce would be the most influential, saying whatever came to his mind.
Bob Hope would riff on current events and pop culture but Bruce changed the game by:
writing jokes about everyday life; whereas previously comedians told fictional comedic anecdotes, Bruce would use everyday life as his inspiration
making it ok for comedians to use profanity
writing his own jokes; comedians before Bruce often used joke writers
being determined to shake the audience out of its complacency
From the late ‘50s to early ‘60s, Bruce was the hippest comedian around. In one of his bits, he mimicked Vegas comedians. This parody of the nightclub comedy world (which would feature comedians like Buddy Hackett and Milton Berle) would later be done by Albert Brooks, Steve Martin, Andy Kaufman and countless comedians afterwards.
Bruce was so monumental, his legacy overshadowed another great comedian: Lord Buckley.
A Native American, Buckley’s retelling of classic tales in jazz argot (like “The Raven” or the story of Jesus Christ [called “The Nazz"]) were popular with the hipsters of the day. Buckley would often begin his sets by saying “Me lords, me ladies” in a British accent and he would give friends aristocratic titles. Buckley enjoyed marijuana and LSD much like The Beatles, who were reportedly huge fans of Lord Buckley--so much so that, in the ‘70s, George Harrison would write a song about Buckley’s estate, Crackerbox Palace.
Though the ‘60s were a tumultuous time, the beatnik comedians like Bruce and Buckley were more vocal and popular than the hippie comedians. George Carlin was famous for his Hippy Dippy Weatherman character, which he would perform in clubs. But hippies were not fans of this character.
It wasn’t until the ‘70s that Carlin and Richard Pryor would bring the energy of the ‘60s counterculture into the world of comedy.
A second stand-up found in the nigh-upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV is Katt Williams. Here’s a video of his appearance, which gives a bit more of an idea of what the club looks like. (The clicking sound you hear is the filmer’s video camera.)
Williams routine is interesting in that it refers to Liberty City by name multiple times and has a relatively long segment on how difficult it is to buy a car with bad credit. A sort of meta-funny bit for a game that’s all about stealing cars. Can you even buy a car in GTA?
Williams also references a second comedy club that he calls “Club Bullshit” and describes as very small. I’ll put this down for creating an atmosphere of a big city, but who knows? Maybe Liberty City can support two comedy clubs.
A couple of things can be deduced from the exterior:
Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams are likely the only two comics in the game, since they’re the only ones with posters beside the entrance.
2) The club entrance looks to be based on the Laugh Factory TImes Square, which has since closed and is now the TImes Square Arts Center.
I’m a little surprised considering Rockstar’s satirical tone that I haven’t noticed any details that making fun of stand-up comedy yet. Split Sides isn’t even a childish pun. It’s probably there, but it hasn’t come out yet. Perhaps in the form of a radio ads or maybe there’s a poster for a fake stand-up who’s a stand in for a famous real world name.
Oh, and from the comments on the YouTube video we also learn that you can’t shoot the comics. So save that shit for the hookers.
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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is Katt Williams. Here’s a video of his appearance, which gives a bit more of an idea of what the club looks like. (The clicking sound you hear is the filmer’s video camera.)
