Splitsider

The first time I saw Dave Hill perform, he was giving a celebrity interview to Ira Glass and wearing — at least in my memory — some kind of kimono-inspired bathrobe. His answers were slow and sleepy and totally absurd. Periodically and without provocation, he’d solo for a while on the electric guitar, just because, you know. But while another performer might go broad, Hill remains disarmingly sincere: you feel a little like you’re watching him vamp in front of the bathroom mirror when nobody else is home. In his just-off-the-mark version of reality, none of this is a joke. In our world, it is, which is good — [...]

Louis C.K. is releasing a new album, WORD: Live at Carnegie Hall, on his own, directly through his website, to be purchased by you RIGHT NOW. The album was recorded before the Live at the Beacon Theater show (which makes its TV debut on FX tomorrow night). He explains:

This is about an hour long and it's a recording of a live standup show that I did at Carnegie Hall in November of 2010 as part of a national tour I was on entitled "WORD" I've had a lot of requests from people to release that show as a special [sic] or as a CD.  I hadn't done so [...]

Unpopular Opinions is a bi-weekly column in which a writer takes a stand against popular opinion, whether it's asserting the true merit of a supposedly guilty pleasure or dissenting against the universally lauded.

“Cheers is filmed before a live studio audience.” Those are welcoming words to people of a certain age. They make you think about a home cooked meal after soccer practice. Or a sack of McDonald’s you happily shoved down your throat while waiting for your mom and dad to come home from their weekly night out. Or the can of still beer you guzzled by yourself after stealing it from the front yard of a frat [...]

With two movies coming out today, Think like a Man and Five-Year Engagement, Slate looks at Kevin Hart, who's easily the biggest comedian in the country but not necessarily the most popular. Last year, he was the top grossing touring comedian and his independent released special was the highest grossing standup film in nearly ten years. The writer asks, why hasn't he reached the point of cultural ubiquity of someone like Louis C.K? Race might have something to do with this, despite it being a subject Hart mostly avoid entirely. Regardless, there seems to be a certain groundswell of chatter about Hart recently, which suggests big things are [...]

Today over at Blackbook, Tyler Coates has an excellent look at the state of gay comedians. He talked to folks such as James Adomian, Gabe Liedman, Eliot Glazer, Brent Sullivan, and Dave Holmes about being out in the comedy world and the challenges they face. “I think Hollywood script writers have just recently discovered the phenomenon of the masculine gay man,” says Adomian, who was a finalist on Last Comic Standing in 2010. “There are a lot of people who are beginning to feel comfortable being themselves and not fitting into the straight narrative, but they may not follow the standard gay pattern of going to the White [...]

As co-host of the Nerdist podcast, one of the best and most popular comedy podcasts going, Jonah Ray wields a lot of power in the comedy community, but the show, which he hosts with Chris Hardwick and Matt Mira, is just one of the many projects he currently has his hands in. Ray is also a writer for The Soup, as well as an accomplished standup who hosts the awesome weekly show The Meltdown along with buddy Kumail Nanjiani in the back room of the L.A. comic book store Meltdown Comics.

Jonah Ray’s new album, Hello Mr. Magic Plane Person, Hello, drops today on A Special Thing [...]

While being one of the most, if not the most, revered emerging standups, Hannibal doesn't have tons of acting experience. Yet, as last week's 30 Rock proved, that hasn't hindered his ability to play one hell of a bum. However, maybe he's a bit too good at it, as the clip above suggests. Last week's 30 Rock was just another part of May 2012 being the month of Hannibal Buress, adding to his Comedy Award and the premiere of his role as co-host of The Eric Andre Show and debut of his hour special Hannibal Buress: Animal Furnace (you can see preview of both, kind of, below) [...]

The Sklar brothers, Randy and Jason, have been the Sklar Brothers for about 20 years, ever since a post-collegiate move to NYC and an embrace of the alternative comedy community. Where alt comedy has grown to be one of those terms that means everything and nothing, to the Sklars it meant an opportunity to do duo, and sibling, comedy in a different way, a more genuine way. Instead of endless jokes about being identical or an aping of a false straight-main/funny-man thing, the Sklar's comedy is an honest representation of who they are as everyday people.

And they've been able to take their comedic lens and successfully apply it [...]

There is something quaint, almost reassuring, about watching Patton Oswalt as a stammering host, wearing a white on white ensemble, nervously spinning his wristwatch with his left hand while gripping the microphone tightly with his right. The video is from 1993, before really either Oswalt or Maron had been doing standup for too long, and it's nice to see them before their respective Oscar buzz and New York Times profiles. The video comes from former comedian Marty Higgens's Vimeo channel, where there is also the below video of Patton Oswalt wearing a backwards hat and a red blazer, which I assume he purchased from J.C. Penny's Do The Right [...]