On Saturday night The Shark Show hosted the finals for their Battle of the Funny Bands.
After an introduction of the “celebrity” judges, God’s Pottery kicked it off. I heard they killed the week before, but they didn’t leave much of an impression this time. I knew Cock Lorge wasn’t going to take it because they just sang the phrase ‘cock in the pussy’ over and over and over again (which actually does sound pretty funny when I write it). The judges must’ve agreed with me, because Shayna Ferm and her band The Shayna Forevers, and The Rob and Mark Show made it to the top two spots.
L to R: Katherine Bryant and Jack Kukoda (of the Shayna Forevers), Shayna Ferm, Mark and Rob (of The Mark and Rob Show) moments before the heated finals
Rob and Mark put up a good fight, with songs like “I Don’t Want to Read your Blog” (ahem). But everyone knows that sex sells, and Shayna took the lead by pulling a guitar pick out of her crotch, singing “Come on Me” and “Thanks for Sticking it in Me” and making her band wear nothing but their bathing suits for the final round.
Monday night I got to see how a bad venue and a bad crowd can kill a good night of comedy. Tell Your Friends had all the makings of a great show, Eugene Mirman, Christian Finnegan, Liam McEneaney and Claudia Cogan, all very funny people, were scheduled to perform. So I was surprised when I arrived (late), and only 15 people were there. Not that there would’ve been room for any more. The downstairs of Lolita is long and narrow and everyone had to sit in a line along the wall. It was very awkward staging and that, paired with the size of the audience, made it a difficult show.
Tell Your Friends opened with a folk duo, A Brief View of the Hudson, and it set a mellow vibe for the rest of the night. It’s hard to get into a crazy laughing mood when you’ve just been chilled out, unless you like to laugh at folk singers, like I do. But if they are meant to be taken seriously, I think that they should play at the end.
Everyone who performed was funny–some more than others–but they kept being met with silence. I think Tell Your Friends suffers from what happens to a lot of shows in New York: lack of advertising and space. Mirman and Finnegan were doing bits that I have seen kill at other venues, but weren’t going over well here. That might be another reason that there weren’t many out-loud laughs; most of the material being performed wasn’t new. Even if it had never been on stage before, it had been posted on a blog (Cogan, McEneaney. . . I’m looking at you). But I’m probably the only one that noticed that.
And this is just one chapter! There are 12 chapters (so far; the saga hasn’t ended yet.)
And as if that wasn’t funny enough, on Saturday night, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Ulysses S. Ferrero (Aziz Ansari) and Eliot Rosenblatt (Eric Appel) put together a group of experts to watch and comment on this great masterpiece as it was inducted into the Smithsonian. The panel consisted of a hip hop safety expert, the head of craft services from the filming of TITC(Nick Kroll), the token lesbian, the everyman (Todd Barry) and special guest star, The Closet (David Cross). Read the rest of this entry »
Last night I went to see comedian Patton Oswalt at Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction, a cozy little three-tiered club on Avenue A. Let me tell you something: If you get hold of a time machine and go back and see this show, you will be as satisfied as Mo Pitkin himself, whoever that is.
You may know Patton Oswalt from his hilarious Comedy Central travelogue The Comedians of Comedy, or his role as the fat guy’s friend on King of Queens. He also looks strikingly like my friend C.B.:
Patton Oswalt (on the left) C.B.(on the right)
Regardless, he is a terribly clever and natural comic with a penchant for the geeky. His set was short but well worth the six dollars, and thoroughly pleased the sold-out crowd.
He was preceeded by Upright Citizens Brigade - based comedian Aziz Ansari, who recently won the Best Standup Award at the prestigious Aspen Comedy Festival, and the guy was freaking hilarious. He delivered a long overdue tirade against the absurdity of Cold Stone Creamery (do NOT tip those guys!), and showed his very funny video called “The Illusionators“. John Glaser was in it, so that was cool. Do yourself a favor and check him out! He speaks Tamil!
Michael Showalter, Eugene Mirman and Leo Allen must have been feeling like UNCOOLKIDS when they came up with the theme for last Friday’s show at Warsaw: Junior High Talent Show.
The three comedians proved that everyone was a freak when they were younger.
Allen (SNL writer, Slovin and Allen) learned at a young age that a quickie comeback can be the difference between looking cool or being labeled a dork. So he prepared a comeback for every possible situation, and shared them with us:
“The current generation of twenty and thirty something’s is the first generation to have grown up with easy to use video cameras and camcorders in their homes. Most of us experimented with these home video cameras when we were children. “The Movies I Made as a Kid,” will put these creative videos on display.”
I love this idea. Jon Friedman from Tremendous Rabbit Productions and The Rejection Show sent this out earlier today:
“”The Movies I Made as a Kid” is moving forward and picking up speed. Gather up your old hilarious kid movies when you go back home for the holidays. This project is being developed for the web, festival, and the TV! What is “The Movies I Made as a Kid” you ask?
We’ve made a beta preview test pilot trailer featuring my own kid video. You can find out more about the project and see me as my awkward glorious 14 year old self here.”
Contact Jon Friedman at jon AT rejectionshow.com for full submission details. It is free to submit.
For those of you who haven’t seen the magazine articles, the late night guest spots, or any of the other media circus that’s been happening the past couple of weeks, Howard Stern is leaving KROQ for Sirius Satellite Radio. This morning was his last show.
And for some reason, I can’t stop paying attention.
First thing this morning I woke up and turned on “The Last Show”. Some low brow jokes were made, a girl got naked. The only difference between the last show and any other show I’d heard was that clips were the fans that kept calling in to thank Stern. That’s right. No matter how you feel about him, you can’t deny that there are hundreds of thousands of people who love Howard Stern.
I got on the internet to research this relationship Stern has with his fans. Message boards were filled with people saying they were coming to New York to be here for the last show. Not just driving in from Jersey and Long Island, but flying in from all over the country. They were all going to meet up outside of The Howard Stern Building to be there for a parade after the show. I thought about going, but the idea of being in a crowd of die-hard Howard Stern fans scares the shit out of me.
Then I found the live Howard Stern Walks: Yahoo web-cast of the after party, taking place right now at the Hard Rock Cafe. I can’t stop watching it. They interviewed John the Stutterer, Wendy the Retard, Crackhead Bob, all members of Stern’s ‘Whack Pack’. Sheryl Crow will be playing live in a few minutes, and right now, I am watching Martha Stewart welcome Stern to Sirius radio. Is anyone else’s head exploding?
“Be part of a live taping of Game Time, hosted by hysterical comic Christian Finnegan. Special guest: David Cassiday.
Audience members will be invited on stage, to participate in a series of Jeopardy styled questions focusing on classic TV trivia, shows like I LOVE LUCY, BEWITCHED, THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, THE MUNSTERS, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, THE BRADY BUNCH and ALL IN THE FAMILY. Participation is optional - Guests must be 21 years of age and older.
Wednesday, November 30
The Supper Club
240 West 47th Street
3:00pm or 6:00pm
The day is broken down into two shoots. Snacks and drinks provided.
Email your reservation request to kambri@ballyhoopromotions.net.
Provide the full name of all guests and the preferred time of attendance.”
The Aristocontest
[The Filthiest Joke Ever - LIVE!]
Saturday, December 3 - 11:00pm
Featuring: Bob Wiltfong (The Daily Show)
Kurt Braunohler (Chengwin, Neutrino Video Projects)
Katherine Bryant (Fearsome)
Bob Powers (How to Kick People)
Andres du Bouchet (TONY Best of NY)
AND MORE!
Come early, and sign-up to tell your OWN version of the Aristocrats
joke!
$100 Grand Prize, courtesy of V2 Records!
All participants receive a copy of The Aristocrats comedy soundtrack,
out December 6 on V2 Records! Obscene, vulgar, offensive… The
Funniest CD you will ever hear.
at The Peoples Improv Theater
154 West 29th Street
(btwn. 6th & 7th Aves.)
When Fearsome left the stage after their new show at The P.I.T. tonight, an audience member turned to me, with a big smile, and said “They just keep getting more disgusting.”
And really what more can you say about an evening of sketch comedy that includes a rhinoceros gynecologist that spears an unborn child with his giant tusk, a menage-a-trios involving a woman who has a giant vagina on her stomach (”it’s just higher!”) and a kindergarten teacher who lets her students feel her newly filled-in nest.
You might think by the above description that the show Fearsome. . . and Such resembles a bad frat party filled with nothing but jockstraps and fart jokes, but the opposite is true. The six members of the troupe have created an evening of comedy that manages to bow to the lowest common denominator in a most intelligent way. One creepy love scene between Sade fans places two troupe members on opposite sides of the stage, and with perfectly timed movements the audience is able to see from both actors points of view.
Their unique style flows one scene into another, never giving you time to actually realize how brilliant and flawless their segues have been. You don’t know exactly how you got from the albino time traveling mishap to the groundhog day wedding reception , but somehow they got you there. The only problem with this style is that without a break between each sketch, the audience did not have time to applaud and cheer, which they obviously wanted to do.
Fearsome . . . and Such will be at The P.I.T. every Friday night through December 16 (except the Friday after Thanksgiving). Tickets are going to sell out fast, so buy them in advance here.
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And as if that wasn’t funny enough, on Saturday night, at the 
And for some reason, I can’t stop paying attention.