Look, the Grammys have always been sort of out of touch when it comes to comedy, often choosing safe, unchallenging stand-up albums over cutting edge great ones. Occasionally, outstanding stuff seeps through (like Louis C.K.'s Hilarious, which won the prize last year), but it's pretty rare. The 2013 Grammy nominees were announced today, and in the category of Best Comedy Album, voters played it pretty safe and proved to be woefully ignorant of some amazing work done by comedians this past year. Here are this year's nominees for Best Comedy Album:
Lewis Black – In God We Rust
Margaret Cho – Cho Dependent (Live in Concert)
Jimmy Fallon – [...]
If you have Netflix and haven't seen Lewis Black's newest special, In God We Rust, you've missed your chance. Don't worry, today it comes out on DVD and Blu-ray. Fans of Black's grimacing, arm waving, furious finger-wagging, and frequent outbursts into the mic will not be disappointed. In Rust, Black characteristically raves about the absurdity of Valentine's Day in February, the uselessness of Farmville, getting old, politics, and how a little newspaper in Wendover, Nevada wrote this about him: "He's known for his comedy style, which often includes mental breakdowns." Check out Lewis Black's latest hour-long mental breakdown, er – I mean comedy special.
It’s no secret that sometimes comedy is taken a bit too seriously. Comedy obsessives love not just the jokes, but the mechanics and emotions of the comedy world. There are a raft of comedy documentaries exploring comedy and comedians, but do they really have anything significant to add to the discussion? This series looks at comedy documentaries and whether they’re interesting, insightful, and possibly even…funny?
When comedy documentaries follow a living person, it’s normally at a time in their career when interesting things are happening: Conan O’Brien has just lost The Tonight Show, Joan Rivers is reinventing herself, Eddie Izzard is coming back with all new [...]
The kindly Brits over at the BBC have decided to make an American version of their longtime news quiz satire show The News Quiz, called The News Quiz USA With Lewis Black. The pilot episode, which will be taped one week from today in New York, will feature comedians Andy Borowitz, Kathleen Madigan and Ted Alexandro chattin' about the news. Keep your fingers crossed for the pilot to succeed so that the show can be sold to US radio markets! Unless you hate good things. Then you can do whatever you want with your goddamned fingers. I don't care.
