Category: Stand-Up Comedy

MTV launched a massive Hulu-style music video website earlier this week and it’s pretty great if you’d like to go study that 80s-90s art form (not so much now, right?). But with my interest in the funny, I had to go through and see what comedians are on there. Setting punchlines to music is real dangerous. Watching these will make you appreciate Zach Galifianakis and Demetri Martin all the more. This will probably be the most painful post ever to view in its entirety.

Sam Kinison’s “Wild Thing”
I suppose this one is debatable, but to me this was the biggest sign that Kinison was starting to diverge from the shock and surprise of his screaming to making it all about the screaming and the revenge that went in tandem with it. There’ are no setups in this, just the punches.

Rodney Dangerfield’s “Rappin’ Rodney”
I’ve always throught of Rodney Dangerfield as kind of a transitional comic - one who clearly had borscht belt influences, but who took that rapid-fire gag machine and combined it with the persona driven act of today. It never felt creaky. Except right here, when Rodney one-liners are meant to be a rap.

Jeff Foxworthy’s “Party All Night”
Even when this was made in the early 90s, I don’t think anybody had thought of Foxworthy as a comic with much to say about single life. Wow, look, punks dancing to country music! That’s crazy! Hard to believe it was directed by Weird Al.

Hey, isn’t that Todd Glass as a cop at the end?

Howie Mandel’s “Watusi”
I had never seen this one before, but good Christ is it horrific. It fits his trademark prop-tastic nonsense style, but the non-sequiturs lose even the semblance of charm when set to music. I tried to watch a second time to give a more detailed thoughts, but I just can’t get through it.

Funny thing: Chris Rock also had a video on the new MTV site (and not for “No Sex in the Champagne Room”) but when I went looking for it to write the post, it was gone. Definitely a sign he’s got good management.

Patton Oswalt at his nerdiest, performing at last weekend’s Blizzcon with jokes about Spider-Man, the suicide of the second Terminator robot and his defense for the wasted lives of World of Warcraft players.

Videogame blog Joystiq has the entire 45 minute set as a mp3 (with naturally better quality)... or you can listen to it right here (which pulls from the same audiofeed).

Two more segments in video after the jump includes paralleling John McCain’s life story to comic book super villains and more non-nerd friendly material like Yoshinoya Beef Bowl as a criminal front.

The new site Daily Beast recently presented a video that collect comedy about Black Presidents by black comics. They’ll soon have another segment to cut into the montage, from “Katt Williams: It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’” which after showcasing a couple of minutes of material on Hillary, talks about Obama.

I think it’s interesting here that even with Obama, that Williams describes himself as confused about the election the whole time. Below, that video from Daily Beast.

“Katt Williams: It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’” will get released on November 11th, not only on DVD but also on Blu-Ray (for those who really need to see the comic nuance in Katt’s facial expressions).

This is an incomplete transcript. More to come later today. Also later today, the premiere of Louis C.K.‘s new comedy special “Chewed Up” at 11PM on Showtime.

Like a lot of people, I’ve been thinking about the economy lately. You’ve kind of cultivated an audience of parents with kids who are probably worried about this as well. Does this put a little bit more pressure on you to give the people who come to the theater a good show because this is probably a big night out for them?

There’s no doubt about that. I feel way more pressure when they pay that kind of money. And in a theater, the pressure is all on you. There’s no alternate. If they go to a club, they’ve drank. They’ve probably ate.

You’re a part of the show, but when they come to a theater they’re just sitting in these chairs facing you. It’s a whole lot more pressure. You really got to make them feel like that was their night for them. You are their evening.

People come out to see you. It’s one thing if they come out to see whoever’s at the club that night. Then they’re just happy if it worked out. If not, they’re like, “that guy wasn’t as good as other times we’ve been there.”

It’s very disappointing to see somebody who you’re a fan of and have the show be mediocre.

I heard you talk about Shameless and how you look back at the guy differently. Have you already had that experience with Chewed Up?

My life has changed a lot since “Chewed Up” and yes, I have looked back on it and gone, “Ugh, that’s what he was like.”

So each is like a chapter in your life.

In a way. Each one has a different stage in maturity. And each one has a different stage in how I look at things in the world too. I’m obviously I’m still the same person. So there’s continuity there.

I used to see a therapist. And I thought about seeing one again, but then I think, “What am I not saying to my audience?” The process of clearing out my brain of the most upsetting and most real thoughts is how I come up with material. So what would I need to do that with a therapist for?

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A while back I wondered how Adam Sandler would be constructing an act for “Funny People”, Judd Apatow’s upcoming film about stand-ups. Specifically, I wondered if his stand-up would be based in a character different from himself and how he could workshop that material. This quick summation in Entertainment Weekly gives an answer:

Adam Sandler’s ran longest and came with a disclaimer: Jokes about being single were based on his character and not Sandler’s real life (though the distinction was less clear with later rants about fame, the paparazzi, and living large).

So it was: Just tell people. Of course, this is at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Los Angeles - a venue full of comedy nerds, making is pretty performer friendly. You can say to folks like that: “Hey, I’m not me, I’m somebody else and the jokes are from that vantage point.” And they’ll follow that flow. I’m a little curious if Sandler did (or would do) this if/when he did a drop by at the Improv or the Laugh Factory.

Of course, that doesn’t matter much now as they’re starting to shoot soon. In fact, they’ve begun looking for paid extras to be audience members. If you’re in Los Angeles and are curious, the info is after the jump.

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Chris Rock’s latest special “Kill the Messenger” is coming up in an hour and a half on HBO (specifically 9PM EST). I haven’t seen it yet, it looks like it might be a little different than your standard comedy special, mixing in documentary footage to give insight into the art form of stand-up. Here’s a couple of clips from it.

The first has Chris talking about why he never headlined until he got on Saturday Night Live (with a guest appearance by good friend Mario Joyner).

And this clip has Chris talking after a show in Edinburgh about the difference between performing in a theater and a comedy club.

Update: Or maybe it doesn’t have any documentary stuff? We’ll see.

While researching older stand-up showcases for addition to the Stand-Up Comedy Database, I found this from Comedy Central’s mid 90s alt comic showcase “Comedy Product” with Mary Lynn Rajskub. I can’t really imagine anything like it airing on Comedy Central today. Some would definitely call it more akin to performance art. She seems so sincere here that it grounds it enough to make it funny.

Also, at the beginning, in case you didn’t get the reference, Garofalo is talking about Comedy Condos, residences owned by clubs to put up traveling road comics. And judging from the promo at the end, with “Exit 57” as a lead-in, that block was like a government mandated hour for comedy nerds.