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As was mentioned here – and on every other comedy blog – this week, David Letterman had Mary Hicks, the mother of Bill Hicks, as a guest on Friday’s show. They also played his full set that was pulled from broadcast in 1993.
Tonight’s finale of the PBS series Make ‘Em Laugh started off with the simple category of “wiseguys”. I’m still not sold on the way these episodes are categorized, but happy that this episode kicked off with Don Rickles, including some great clips of him on Carson.
Even history’s “great” comedians rarely make news after they’ve passed. Bill Hicks has been gone for 15 years, and besides a few books published about the man, nothing has been as newsworthy to Hicks fans as this.
Sometimes, you just know something is destined to suck.
The best thing I read all week was this post from Pat Cashin on his blog, www.clownalley.net (careful, you’ll want to scroll past that photo quickly). Pat runs down 20+ signs that a clown may possibly be terrible, including references to some hackey-even-by-birthday-clown-standards gags and costuming choices.
Tonight, I came across a website for a new comedy school which similarly does nothing to instill confidence in its greatness. To keep this a “blind item”, I’ll just say that it’s located in a major city, which I’m pretty familiar with, and which already has a vibrant/tight-knit improv/sketch community.
PBS’s six-part series Make ‘Em Laugh continued tonight with parts 3 & 4 (click here for my thoughts of 1 & 2).
First up? Slapstick, which host Billy Crystal says is “the oldest and most universal form of comedy that we have”.
I have a huge soft spot for physical comedy. I adore it, partly for the simplicity and purity of it, and partly because I recognize how hard it is. It’s not respected as much as it should be. (I’ll lament this further another time, I promise.)
I can stomach James Lipton if it means I get to hear a brilliant comedic mind talk for an hour or two. So when Ricky Gervais’s episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio aired on Bravo on Monday night, my stuck-with-Canadian-cable self excitedly waited for the torrent to become available.
The long-running rumor that John Mayer would host a new variety show were confirmed by CBS last week, and immediately, venom spewed throughout the internet. He’s a sell-out, he’s a douchebag, he needs to stick to music, and so on. In short: “that’s enough, John Mayer”.
I disagree. Walk with me…
I had cautiously high hopes for the first two episodes of Make ‘Em Laugh, which premiered tonight on PBS (curiously, in widescreen on one of my two PBS stations). The names attached to appear were impressive, but I know better than to trust the precious, delicate perception of comedy to a bunch of documentarians. Too many people do it wrong.
Congrats to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, for gaining the community support of their new location in Manhattan’s Lower East Side! The new location hinged on them getting a liquor license (paying the bills hinges on those $2 PBRs), which they were approved for on Monday night.
A few months back I wrote about how despite having the best of journalistic intentions, and the savvyness to know what your interview subject wants to say, you can’t deliver a story as fully-formed and accurate as you’d like.
Sometimes, you stress over a misguided article. But other times? Other times, you know you’ve given up a little. You let them talk. You silently marveled at their bullshit. You didn’t fight them. You typed up what they said. And you feel very, very dirty when you see it in print. (I still shudder over my article on Dustin “Screech” Diamond, a mostly shiny-happy piece that mentions nothing about how he flaked on the interview the first time, called me the next day high on “pain medication”, and desperately wanted to talk about rap music.)
It happens. I can only hope that this is the case with a piece I stumbled upon tonight, from the Evansville Courier & Press.
