To start things off with a bit of Philly flavor, Paul F. Tompkins was on Conan this week, and talked about driving with his wife and the crazy products in the SkyMall catalog. Splitsider has the clip for you to enjoy.
In this interview with Jack Vaughn, founder/Vice President of Comedy Central Records, he lets out the secrets of what they are looking for in a comedian (hint: it’s being funny and having your own voice – who woulda thought!)
This article from Slate asks the question “Why are these hip male comedians all talking about their weight?” Marc Maron thinks it has to do with rebellion and that ““Now the enemy is really ourselves, and the struggle between accepting ourselves or hating ourselves”.
Louis CK wrote this essay for Fast Times where he says the future of America is female.
Since we’re talking about Louis CK, he’s releasing a new special via the internet on December 10 (tomorrow!) and to tease us, he released this outtake from the special a little early.
Comedy is subjective, right? Well, over at Complex magazine they decided to release this list of the 15 Worst Stand-ups. What do you think?
That list on complex should be called 15 unbelievably successful comics who ran out of material and the editor of complex magazine is very jealous of them. All of them may be tired and a few of them may make you wonder “how did they get there?” but they all struggled and found their voice and an audience. Go back and look at these comics in their prime and try to forget that you are supposed to hate them. They all have great moments. Except Michael Richards. He’s an actor not a comic and he is a horrible comic.
Personally, not a fan of any of these, but yeah, to Jason’s statements, there are audiences who find them entertaining & worthwhile.
Reminds me of Mike Myers’ opinions about the humor in Austin Powers films…I’m paraphrasing, but his point was that people want to categorize humor as ‘gross’, ‘physical’, ‘intelligent’, ‘cheap’…etc etc. But all he cared about is whether or not people laughed. That stuck with me.