Not necessarily a funny man in and of himself, but a great comic foil to Johnny Carson. Some info on McMahon's life: New York Times Obituary, Los Angeles Times Obituary and here's video of the one time McMahon lived up to all those jokes Carson told about him.

Ricky Gervais, along with Tracy Morgan and Bill Maher, will be among the headliners for this years New York Comedy Festival. Comedy Central will also shoot their 2010 season of Comedy Central Presents during the event as well. The fest will run for November 4th to the 8th and tickets begin going on sale August 5th.

To celebrate its 35th year, New York comedy club The Comic Strip will be the subject of a documentary entitled "Eat, Drink, Laugh" from Letterbox Pictures. Besides interviews with the comics who've performed there, there's promise of never-before-seen footage of the club. The doc will see release next summer.

Judah Friedlander writing a book about being the World Champion. Of what? Of everything. In fact, the unpublished book is already a bestseller. It's coming from IT Books in Spring 2010.

The 30 second Emmy clips announcing the Emmy-nominated writing staff of talk shows are created by the Emmy-nominated writing staffs of talk shows, and thus have become highly competitive to top what they did last year. I get why. I hate, hate, hate award shows but this is the only thing that makes me exit my seclusion to watch live.

Dana Carvey's approach to political humor: " if you have a political punchline, then the audience is rooting you on, because you’re reinforcing what they want you to say... Robert [Smigel] and I would generally want to abstract stuff to some other place... Just wanting to create madness, wanting it to be ridiculous, wanting it to be so silly that it has this great bite to it..." (AV Club)

Sacha Baron Cohen collaborator Dan Mazer: "There are two things I would say are the key to comedy. One is character. All good comedy comes from character. In my mind, jokes are one thing, but without a convincing protagonist and somebody you care about, your comedy is on a path to nothing." Number 2 can be found here. This is taken from my friend Mike Sacks's upcoming book "And Here's the Kicker" - an amazing book of interviews with comedian. If you aspire to hone your funny, it's a must buy.

iTunes is selling "Great TV Comedies"    for a song. Literally. Some episodes are 99¢. And the first episodes of five shows - Reno 911!, Arrested Development, The State, Human Giant and The IT Crowd - are free.

TBS pursuing reviving the NBC-cancelled "My Name is Earl." If they did it, it'd likely be at a lower budget. Though the network is pushing stand-up in the upcoming weeks with the new Just For Laughs Chicago festival, it's interesting that they've focused on keeping the sitcom (in general) alive too. They don't really do the odd sketch/stand-up hybrids that are Comedy Central's stock and trade.

First came the rumors that Futurama was coming back for 13 episodes, but now the truth is even better. Comedy Central has ordered 26 episodes of Futurama. The entire creative team - voice cast and writers - are on board. New episodes debut in the not-too-distant future of mid 2010.

R-rated comedy "Hangover" bested Pixar's "Up" as well as PG-13 rated Will Ferrell comedy "Land of the Lost" this weekend. Loves me that Pixar animation, but great to see an unapologetic comedy do great at the box office. Special bonus: watching people learning to spell Galifianakis as it becomes a household name.

Ed Helms on his film The Hangover: "none of the comedy comes from the characters being clever, like you see in a lot of sitcoms or movies, where the characters actually have a funny sense of humor. That’s not the case in this movie. So as an actor, you can really play the intensity and gravity and seriousness of the moment, and just rely on the circumstances being funny." (AV Club)

Demetri Martin will continue his comical investigation into both the a priori and a posterori natures of "Things" with Comedy Central renewing his series "Important Things with Demetri Martin" for a second season. The show's moving to Los Angeles, as Martin's becoming pretty in demand in the movie biz.

Lots of stand-up, both classic and new:

• First, the classics. Steven Wright's I Have a Pony (CD/DVD) which includes both his first CD plus a DVD of his first HBO special.
• The 25th anniversary of Eddie Murphy: Delirious brings a rerelease on DVD, with the addition of a documentary on the making of Delirious with comics like Chris Rock, Katt Williams, Cedric the Entertainer and Chris Tucker paying tribute.
• And the new, Sebastian Live from Sebastian Maniscalco.