Archive for the 'Comedy' Category

A sense of foreboding crept into my testicles as I stumbled into the Parkside Lounge ten minutes late to do this review and realized I was the only person there. By the time The Rob and Mark Show started there were about ten of us. Things looked grim, but then a showbiz miracle happened:

They went into their opening number, a book club review about a book neither of them had read, and it…was…Hilarious! The moment Mark sang about the shit fairy,”the shit fairy comes and replaces your poo” I was hooked.

A little ways into the show they told a horror tale of working a club where they had to follow a duo of tranny magicians. The big finish for the trannies was pulling a seemingly endless line of knotted scarves out of their post- op vagina/things and flatly announcing: “TaDa!” It was at that point I began to realize this show was gonna rock. And I was right.

To me, Rob was reminiscent of a young Lewis Black sans the maniacal anger. He kept things grounded and moving- even while breaking our hearts singing about his hetero man crush on Jack Bauer.

Mark reminded me of a mix between Dick Smothers and Tom Hanks’ character from the movie Volunteers. An awful movie, but I mean it as a compliment. At one point in the show he does an impersonation of Wilfred Brimley hawking muffins filled with his own leche de hombre- Now that’s just good clean fun.

They also had a couple of special guests. The first was Todd Womack. One thing he did was an impersonation of a monkey coordinating an elaborate theft of a shiny spoon. The bizarre thing is the voice he used for the monkey is exactly how I always imagined a monkey planning a heist to sound. Creepy huh?

Their second guest was Rusty Ward. He came up on stage to read us some mad libs he had filled out with his crazy Mother. Then he was interrupted by a call from his daughter. It didn’t take long for the scene to deteriorate into a domestic disaster between him and his ex wife, only you know- in a really balls out funny way.

The easy witty banter between all the guys was great and really showed that they genuinely enjoy each other and love comedy. Even when their jokes fell flat they were able to laugh at each other and themselves, or in Womack’s case, just blame the audience for being lame.

They stumbled, they had miscues, they talked over each other, but it all added to an air of camaraderie and gave the show an intimate raw feel that I find lacking in a lot of live performances. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t polished, but it was real and it was laugh out loud funny. I’d go to see them again in a heartbeat.

For future dates and venues check out the link to their website.

Also hear some of their songs on their myspace page.

In case anyone was wondering, Danny Tanner is not gay. Bob Saget made this clear during a taping of his stand-up comedy show for HBO. Audience members lined up around the block at NYU on Friday night, gearing up for the free show. I thought you had to have friends in production or a super secret email contact to get in. Not so much. Turns out all you had to do was turn off your cell phone and flash photography and agree not to have to pee for nearly two hours, and you were good to giggle.

An audience coordinator made us clap like mad while a jib camera swept the crowd, for creative editing purposes. That was kind of funny in itself, everyone reacting like this guy was part of the British invasion. A comic named Mike Young warmed us up. His bits were brief but hilarious. He mused about relationships, then came to the conclusion that the “interesting” girls he pursues are actually “bipolar”. There’s something about the way girls confront guys, he said, that makes them lie even when there’s no need to. Case in point: “Where’d you go?!” “Just grabbed some McDonalds, honey.” “Then why are you holding a Burger King bag?!” “I don’t know! I don’t know why I even said that! I don’t even like food!”

Then Bob Saget made his entrance. My first thought was that he’s really skinny. My second observation was that he was wearing Chuck Taylors. Chuck Taylors are a huge factor in my personal Uncool gauge. Bonus points.

He’s raunchy in a way you can’t understand unless you’ve seen his shows, and I don’t mean the show with MK & Ashley and I don’t mean the home video show, either. He punctuated most sentences with curses and more than once he mentioned sleeping with Kimmy Gibler, “DJ”’s friend. He immediately singled out a guy in the front row and asked him if he shaves his balls. The shorn balls was a recurring theme throughout the show.

But instead of acting beyond the shows that made him famous, Saget incorporated them into his act, poking fun at America’s Funniest Home Videos, “complaining” about how many home made pornos people sent into the show, and making Dave Coulier and John Stamos the subjects of many of the jokes (because Stamos, unlike Saget, is pretty, and because Coulier, unlike the name Tanner, does rhyme with gay). He told a story about he and Stamos witnessing a car accident in which a woman suffered a short black out; when she opened her eyes, they were peering at her, and he joked that she must have thought she was in sitcom hell. Saget and Stamos have also been known to break into their old characters at awkward moments, say, in a men’s room with another guy using the urinal between them.

“I will f*ck you up,” Saget said intermittently, and pointed to the crowd, almost as a transition from one joke to the next. But eager to also be perceived as a family man, he laced his act with tidbits about his three daughters, their vapid cell phone conversations, their thongs the size of slingshots, which he happened to stumble upon in the laundry and, horrified already, found out belonged to his youngest daughter. He told a story of Hollywood humiliation: he approached Steven Spielberg with his daughter and said, “Honey, this is the man who directed your favorite movie,” only to have his daughter say she hated E.T. That little extra terrestrial was the butt of Saget’s jokes too; I think he likened him to a testicle.

Then he broke out the acoustic, and sang a song about oral sex to the tune of “Wonderful Tonight”. Saget concluded the evening with a song he calls “Danny Tanner’s Not Gay” to the tune of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.” “I know that show wasn’t always funny/but f*ck you, it made me alot of money,” he crooned while the audience, an NYU and young professional crowd, cracked up.

So the next time you’re watching television and you’re looking for something saucier than old “Full House” reruns, you might be able to catch Bob Saget on HBO on Demand. But don’t say I didn’t warn you - it’s a whole other side of Danny Tanner!

Sketch Block Sunday is a weekly show featuring a few different sketch comedy groups each week. I went by tonight to check out Chocolate Cake City in particular– a sketch group that was established in Boston and has recently moved to New York City.

The night as a whole was inconsistent. All the components for a great evening were in place: cheap beer and wine sold outside the theatre, a really unique, fun space for the performance, and a full, rowdy audience. However, the night began on a sour note, with the lackluster performance of “The Comediettes”, whose sketches were stale and dumbed-down. The MC tried hard to get the crowd laughing, but ended up telling meandering stories with little or no pay-off. It seemed certain it would be a long, uncomfortable night.
Things picked up with the second group, “Better Than the Machine”. Their sketches were smarter and more confident, though still teetering on the edge of the overused cliche.

The stand out act of the evening was “The Greatest Show On Earth”, a two man sketch group whose sketches were witty, concise and fresh. They strayed from the conventional sketch comedy structure and pulled it off beautifully. Watching “The Greatest Show on Earth” was not only funny but startling in its originality. It served as a reminder that you don’t have to follow a recipe to make great comedy. Hopefully other sketch groups will learn from these guys, and begin to take advantage of the artistic freedom that this medium provides.

Chocolate Cake City closed the night, returning to more traditional sketch comedy. Their show benefitted greatly from a clear theme (”The Sevent Deadly Sins”), something not seen in the previous sketches. Also on their side was the talented group of actors, who worked together well and seemed 100% behind the material. Their show was tight and easy to watch.

Sketch Block Sundays does not offer the most original sketch comedy, but it is a solid night with some true comedic gems. That, combined with a few bottles of beer, make it a worthwhile way to end your weekend.

Wow, I’m not really sure what to say about Fearsome’s Gungrease, except to say that it was good clean fun- the kind of fun that you can take your mom and grandma to. WAIT! STOP! UNH UH! That’s not right at all. This show was a filthy, guilty pleasure. Sometimes I found myself laughing and then suddenly I would feel all dirty inside. Then, I looked around at the other audience members and realized we were all feeling the same way- everybody was wearing a very guilty grin.

Did they really just say that? Did they really just do that? The last song of the evening was so raunchy that you might actually be a little ashamed of yourself for laughing- sadly (or not so sadly) the song is still running through my head- over and over again.

The Fearsome team worked well as a unit- dynamic in their staging choices, collaborative in their performance. A few note worthy moments were the initial show opening (aka the whole first act). Then, in the 2nd act Chris’s ‘Yeah’ skit was clever and fun. The teams take on Dateline NBC’s Chris Hanson’s Child Sex Offender show was quite comical and fun, but lasted just a tad bit too long.

Fearsome covered the whole gamut- from accidental death, necrophilia, pedophilia, the joys of fathers and sons sharing time together, grown men in diapers, drinking games and even e coli outbreak.

Seriously though, Fearsome you needed an Act 3. Your hour long show was great ride, but I was just getting warmed up. Next time finish me off.

Overall: It’s fun. Go see it with a dirty-minded loved one. It’ll be at the People’s Improv Theatre (the PIT) through April 20th.

I have never had a bad time at any Upright Citizen’s Brigade event and last night was no exception. Comedian Aziz Ansari hosts an amazing night of fresh comedy. Though other comedians perform sets. Ansari is the star of the show, showing clips of his upcoming MTV sitcom, “Human Giants”, reading from unproduced terrible sitcom scripts that he must have found in Los Angeles trash cans, and performing comedy in an unscripted, off the cuff way that is rarely scene in NYC’s comedy scene. Ansari is smart and provocative, bravely using comedy to comment on the most taboo topics. He succeeds across the board, somehow walking the line between offensive and funny with grace and wit.

Ansari is relaxed and confident on stage, enjoying himself as much as the audience enjoys him, and telling stories from his life that are funny because of Ansari’s talent as a story teller, not necessarily because the stories are funny in and of themselves. But this is a relief. There is nothing staged, no corny punch lines, no stale stand up routines. Ansari and his guests are simply being themselves; self deprecating, sarcastic and fun loving. The result is one of the most enjoyable comedy shows I’ve seen, and best of all its completely free! The only downside was a late start to an already late (11pm) show, but this was quickly forgiven when the hilarity finally began.

The place is packed with alternative comedy lovers and UCB groupies. There is definitely an “insider” feel to everything; the same people clearly come to Ansari’s show week after week. But instead of being intimidating or uncomfortable, the community feel is comforting, and random UCB-ers were introducing themselves to me all night long, so that I, too, could feel part of the club. Add to all this the fact that you can drink beer or wine throughout the whole show, and its clear there is no reason at all to not attend “Crashtest” every single week. Ansari is growing in popularity and is probably close to beoming a mainstream, well known comedian, so catch this fantastic event now, before his show airs and he becomes a household name!

Dear Mo Pitkins,

What the hell?

I arrived at 7:30 for the 7:45 Shark Show that was happening in the upstairs lounge and there was no one sitting at the little desk at the top of the stairs where they usually take your money and tell you what’s going on. Hmm. I went back downstairs. Then I saw some other people go upstairs, so I followed them thinking they might know what’s going on. They didn’t. At this point, it’s 7:45. A woman with a Mo Pitkins t-shirt comes up the stairs and says “The show started already you know, you can go ahead in.” So we walk in and start to sit down when we’re told by the man on stage that the show has in fact, not started yet. Back into the hallway to wait some more. Finally, 8:00 and we are let in. Grr. Poor organization makes me frustrated. We sit down and the waitress comes over to take our drink order. My friend wanted an Orange Julius. Unfortunately for her, they don’t make the specialty cocktails upstairs, so she had to settle for jack and coke. Hmmph. This show better be good cause now I’m all cranky.

Lucky for me, it was the funnest!

Gabe McKinley, Nick Stevens, Dan Gaba and Ari Voukydis are The Shark Show. It’s sorta like Saturday Night Live, if Saturday Night Live had comedians instead of musical guests. The guest comics included Chris Jurek, A.D. Miles, Sean Crespo, and Dan Newbower. I enjoyed Chris Jurek’s email from his mother about his Time Out New York joke of the week. I had seen A.D. Miles two days prior and even though some of the material was the same, I still laughed. I loved Sean Crespo’s take on hipsters who are “so over motor skills”. Dan Newbower was charmingly funny as always, but I was disappointed that he ran out of time before he could finish the re-telling of a dream he had about doing stand-up at Carnegie Hall.

My favorite moments with the regular cast included the passive aggressive environmentalist, Nick Steven’s pantomime, Ari’s Ann Coulter CUNT watch, and Gabe McKinley’s news update. Honestly, sketch comedy and variety shows frighten me a little because it’s SO easy to do it badly. I had nothing to fear.

The Shark Show lived up to all the great things I’ve heard about it. This is smartly written, well acted, funny stuff. You should check it out.

Sometimes I feel like I’m following the same comedians around the city and watching them perform the same stuff over and over again to the point where I start to think, well geez, I hope Jordan Carlos doesn’t think I’m stalking him. So you can imagine my excitement when I went to see Sweet, hosted by Seth Herzog, at The Slipper Room on Thursday and realized I had never seen any of the guests perform before!. Yay! Also, it had been a while since I had visited The Slipper Room and I do so love it. It’s super cute and kitschy and right across the street from Rosario’s which has really yummy pizza. Anyway, Seth’s guests for the evening included guest DJ and comedic sidekick Nick Stevens, A.D. Miles, Arj Barker, Tony Camin (of Bro’in Out fame), and these people - I think they were called The Dreggs (sp?). Video here:

Anyway, they pretty much stole the show cause you can’t beat a singing dog. Afterwards, the guy in the group did this monologue in the style of a one person show delivered by Michael Thomas Foster about being gay. It was hilarious. Other than that, I think my favorite part of the show was when Seth brought his mother onstage (which he does every week in what I think is a genius idea) or Seth and Nick Stevens who I really really liked. A.D. Miles stuff about his divorce and an unused sex swing full of dirty socks was priceless. It was revealed as he was getting offstage, that his ex-wife was originally supposed to be the guest DJ of the night. True or not, that would have been interesting. All of the comics were solid, so I was a little disappointed that the crowd was so low energy that night, myself included. I was just really tired and I would like to publicly apologize to them by saying: It wasn’t you, it was me. Two more things. Seth? Where did you learn to dance like that? And Nick Stevens, I’m going to be at The Shark Show on Saturday. I promise I’m not following you; it’s just a coincidence.

Dry comedy at its best, How to Kick People is a fantastic event at Mo Pitkin’s. Todd Levin and Bob Powers, the evening’s power duo hosts have created an event that allows comedy writers a venue to showcase their work, without having to given in to the more conventional forms of stand up or improv. Instead, How To Kick People is a night of writers performing longer, more concentrated work to a supportive, laid back audience. From the moment it began I felt that How to Kick People is what NPR would be if it were a comedy radio station. This is meant as a huge compliment to Levin and Powers whose humor is pointed, understated and dead-on. The show has a liberal, intellectual tone and best of all no one that goes on stage is trying too hard.

The night’s theme was “I Coulda Been Someone” and each writer addressed this idea in a different but equally hilarious way. to open the show, Levin and Powers showed a slide show of people who had not fulfilled their dreams. This, for me, was the highlight of the night. Each slide was of an individual, a description of their dream, and the reason their dream was de-railed. Levin and Powers delivered each ridiculous dream and de-railment with straight faces and level voices, and the effect was unique and satisfying. I was impressed and inspried by the duo’s creativity and ease with the audience. Though none of their guests quite lived up to this killer opening, it set the tone for an excellent evening of comedy for the literate, intellectual (dare I say hipster?) crowd.

The stand out guest performer was the sole female, Ellie Kemper. She read fake diary entires from her would-be life as a nun– a dream she had nursed when she was younger. The entries addressed all that was disappointing about being a nun, and how unlike the reality of the lifestyle was to the movie “The Sound of Music”. Kemper was charming in her delivery, cheery and naive, with a dark hidden edge. She is an excellent performer and writer and held her ground in the male-heavy line up.

I highly recommend this event, which is celebrating its three year anniversary in the New York scene. Its a little off the beaten path, very East Village, and you feel lucky to have been there when you leave.

You know that whole thing about single people hating Valentine’s Day? Well it’s pretty much true and yes, I’m single.

This year, however I chose to go out and laugh at other people’s heartbreak instead of staying home and wallowing in my own and I’m so glad I did. I have not consistently laughed like this in a long, long time. It was freakin awesome.

The UCB Theater was packed with a mix of singles and couples. And yes, the nice folks at UCB made us stand out in the freezing cold. (Ok, so it has something to do with a fire code, but still). It was SO worth it.

Some performers told the tales of their personal rejection while other people read the most cringe-worthiest material taken from their own high school journals and of course, there was poetry. I loved the montage sitcom-y theme song/credits put together by Jon Friedman to Queen’s “Somebody to Love.” I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to start a show about heartbreak on Valentine’s Day.

Some of my favorite moments of the show were: Sara Schaefer reading her high school love letters and singing “You Oughta Know”; Adrian Frost, who reminded me a bit of Janeane Garofalo, telling the tale of her 10 year relationship that just ended in divorce; Katina Corrao, reading an email from a hairy backed man who rejected her when she called him one too many times “just to see if he was okay”; and Adam Wade’s high school love poem for a hostess.

The amazing thing about this show was that ALL of the performers made me laugh out loud. This never happens. After the show, they had live music and karaoke and kegs. So yeah, you totally missed an amazing Valentine’s Day celebration. The next Rejection Show is March 14th at 8PM at UCB. The next Mortified will be on March 21 at 8:00 pm at Makor Theater. I so highly highly recommend these shows.

Nothing is more painfully hilarious than heartbreak, rejection, and the truth.

Friday night Rob Gorden and Mark Douglas brought the Rob & Mark Show to the Parkside Lounge, and added even more color to the tinselly stage. The word on the street was that these guys are gut-splitting. They did not disappoint.

First of all, they look like they would be funny, and that’s not to say they’re funny-lookin’. If you’re a fan of the film “So I Married An Axe Murderer”, and you probably are if you’re uncool, you might expect Rob to spew “Harriet…Harriet…” all slam-like, because of his resemblance to Mike Myers. And Mark has the look of a sitcom actor who is one audition away from stealing Matt LeBlanc’s jobs, you know, on the shows that are supposed to be funny.

They’re a combo with chemistry. “No one wants to read your blog!” Rob sang, while Mark strummed the acoustic. “The Blog Song” elicited appreciative cheers from the audience. And a few sheepish laughs as well from those guilty of clacking away at the keys about something mundane, like shopping for toothbrushes, in this ultimate modern-age display of what I call capital-narcissism.

They also played a song about having a man-crush on “24”’s Jack Bauer. And let’s not forget guest comic Michael Birch as womanizing boozer Ben Franklin, who claimed he created bifocals so his penis would appear larger. (If anyone caught “The Office” on Thursday night, you will recognize a reoccurring theme here. Ben Franklin is bringing sexyback, I guess.)

But the real treat was the Pink Floyd jukebox musical, set to a story about kids at fat camp. If you don’t laugh when Rob and Mark shout, “Hey, Fatso, leave those chips alone!” you should have your pulse checked.

Rob and Mark wrapped up the show with “Karate Kid The Musical”. They covered all the major scenes of the movie, switching from one character to the next with ease, from Elisabeth Shue’s Ally, to Johnny The Blonde Guy who appears in most popular eighties movies, to Mr. Miyagi and his infamous phrase, “Wax on, wax off.” It’s worth it alone just to hear Mark say “But, Sensei!” in one breath and “Daniel, son!” in the next. When Rob hobbled up to the mic, Ralph-Macchio-with-a-broken-knee style, and positioned himself in the crane, I became a knee slapping laughing freak.
And of course, there’s the “Glory of Love.” But I won’t spoil the ending.