Splitsider

Posts tagged as standup

For the past 15 years, Comedy Central’s half hour specials have showcased the future stars of standup. Looking back, the early years of Comedy Central Presents included memorable sets from the likes of Mitch Hedberg, Patton Oswalt, Maria Bamford, Dane Cook and dozens more. Re-branded The Half Hour in 2012, the series continues to feature the best up-and-coming comics in the country.

For many comedians, it’s that history that makes doing a half hour special so significant. While a half hour may once have been a comic’s first major exposure, comedians now have many ways to build an audience. Almost everyone who taped a special [...]

Interviews
Talking with Al Madrigal about 'The Daily Show' and His New Standup Special
by Erik Voss | April 23rd, 2013
Al Madrigal is a correspondent on The Daily Show, a longtime stand-up comedian, and the co-creator of the comedy podcast network All Things Comedy with Bill Burr. As the Daily Show’s “Latino correspondent,” Madrigal has covered issues like Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation and Puerto Rican statehood, and he explores the subject matter of raising a family in a Mexican neighborhood in his new stand-up special Why Is The Rabbit Crying? – which will air this Friday on Comedy Central. We had a chance to catch up with Madrigal about his special, as well as what it’s like to work on The Daily Show during a time of such sobering headlines.
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Scenes
Looking for Comedy in Nashville
by Sean Maloney | April 10th, 2013
“One time I took the whole crowd out to the parking lot to have a fire-breathing contest with a guy dressed like Jesus. So it was more of a variety show, I guess. It was a friggin' mess. So I…”

A piercing whaddup explodes towards the bar. It's the last Wednesday of the month at Springwater Supper Club & Lounge, Nashville's most revered/reviled dive bar, located on the edge of Centennial Park equidistant from the Piggly Wiggly and the city's scale model of the Parthenon. Craig Smith is tending bar and telling tales of the Nashville's turn-of-the-century comedy scene when he 's interrupted by the the shrill decrescendo of [...]

Begrudging Respect
The Unfair Reputation of Rosie O'Donnell
by Justin Gray | March 27th, 2013
During the comedy boom of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Rosie O’Donnell was one of the fastest rising stars in the New York standup scene. At the time, there were half-hour comedy shows on just about every cable network, and O’Donnell appeared on just about every one of them. In fact, she would go on to replace comedian Bobby Collins as host for VH1’s foray into the stand-up business, unimaginatively titled Vh1’s Standup Spotlight.

However in the intervening years O’Donnell’s reputation as a comic has receded to a point that younger readers may even be surprised to hear she ever did standup at all. This may be because, [...]

Begrudging Respect
Defending Larry the Cable Guy
by Justin Gray | March 6th, 2013
Every week I'll be writing about a comedian who is wildly successful, yet receives little to no respect in the comedy community. I find this divide fascinating and wonder sometimes how the comedy idols I hold dear, like Paul F. Tompkins for example, are ignored by the masses, while comedians like Larry the Cable Guy are embraced on such a huge level. The easy answer is that just because something is popular doesn’t make it good. But there are a lot of very bad comedians who make a living on the road and they don't become national sensations. The other answer is that these comics have a lot of [...]

Begrudging Respect
Keeping it Clean: The Comedy of Sinbad
by Justin Gray | April 24th, 2013
Every once in a while the concept of “clean comedy” will come up, though never among those of us who are passionate about comedy because to us it simply isn’t an issue. We love comedy and whether that means listening to Doug Stanhope tell a filthy hooker story or Brian Regan talking about Fig Newtons, the only deciding factor in our enjoyment is, “is it funny?”

However, in the mainstream this is still a subject of fascination. They tend to marvel at comedians who choose to avoid dirty language in their acts as if those comics are pulling off some kind of magic trick. Unfortunately, this tends to have [...]

Begrudging Respect
Everybody Hates Raymond – They're Wrong
by Justin Gray | April 17th, 2013
When I have children, I'll sit them on my lap and explain to them that when I was their age we had an expression about a piece of art that was not to our liking. That expression was, “not my cup of tea.” I'll explain to them that this expression was used when talking about a piece of art that, despite its pedigree and achievement, was simply not to a person’s liking. This phrase will seem very alien to my children since they will have been brought up exclusively in the Internet age. Today, there are two absolute ways to voice your opinion about a piece of art and [...]

Spending Dollars
Fun Thing to Buy of the Day: Kristen Schaal – Live at the Fillmore
by Jenny Nelson | April 2nd, 2013
Kristen Schaal has been a stand-out star on TV for a long enough time — in live action shows like Flight of the Conchords and The Daily Show as well as cartoons like Bob’s Burgers and Gravity Falls — that it’s hard to believe that Live at the Fillmore is her first full-length standup special. But even if it’s surprising, it’s true; this week Comedy Central is releasing Schaal's debut Live at the Fillmore on DVD. In addition to Schaal's one-hour special, the DVD also features material from her performances on Comedy Central Presents and John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, and her favorite appearances on The [...]

hecklers
Watch Louis C.K. Go Off on a Heckler
by Bradford Evans | March 14th, 2013
You'd think that, what with Louis C.K. being the nation's biggest stand-up and all, that his audiences wouldn't heckle him, but you'd be wrong. Here he is performing as a benefit for P.S. 3 on Staten Island on March 1st at NY City Center, when someone from the audience interrupts him to compliment his boots. C.K.'s responses is as funny and interesting as you'd expect, and hopefully, it will stop people from heckling Louis C.K. forever (but probably not).

Tributes
Mitch Hedberg: Different Ingredients
by Roy Christopher | March 1st, 2013
Deep in the desert of Death Valley, there sits a sleepy little resort called Panamint Springs. The cottages and modest restaurant there are a part of no town, connected to no power grid. For several years, the normally quiet cacti and climes were invaded once a year in the peak of heat for four days by a loose band of comedians and their friends. In the summer of 2005, there were seventy-three of us.

On June 5th, the Sunday night of this four-day party, comedian Emery-Emery read a newspaper article about Pope John Paul II, but instead of the Pope’s name, he inserted fellow comedian Mitch Hedberg’s, both of [...]

Interviews
Talking to Michael Che About Touring the World and Making Standup Glamorous
by Elise Czajkowski | April 24th, 2013
There are high expectations for Michael Che. In the past year, the New York standup has worked on Best Week Ever and SNL, and been hailed as one to watch by the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the bookers of New York City, and many of his fellow comics. And he's not resting anytime soon, bringing his show "Cartoon Violence" to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. Recently, over coffee at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, I got to talk to him about his rapid rise, his brief time in the world of high-end fashion, and the good advice he got from Tracy Morgan.

You just got back [...]

Specials
In His HBO Special's Credits, Louis C.K. Thanks George Carlin, Chris Rock, and China
by Bradford Evans | April 15th, 2013
Louis C.K.'s latest stand-up special, Oh My God, debuted on HBO this weekend, and the end credits featured and lengthy list of "thank yous" to his friends, heroes, and the nation of China. See below for the "thank yous" from C.K.'s special and a heartfelt email he sent out to his fans the day of the special:

George Carlin, Chris Rock, Vernon Chatman, David Wain, Pamela Adlon, Robert Smigel, Todd Glass, Todd Barry, Gary Gulman, William Stephenson, Keith Robinson, Micky Ward, John Landgraf, Joe Namath, Barack Obama.

The audiences in Cleveland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Savannah, Tulsa, Houston, Dallas, New York, Portland (Maine), Hartford, Chicago, San Francisco, Staten [...]

pilot season
Griffin Newman Joins the Cast of John Mulaney's NBC Pilot
by Bradford Evans | March 28th, 2013

NYC-based stand-up Griffin Newman is the latest actor to be added to the eclectic cast the new NBC pilot The John Mulaney Show, Deadline reports. Newman is joining a cast that includes SNL writer/stand-up John Mulaney, who also created the show, and Martin Short and Elliott Gould. The loosely-autobiographical show stars Mulaney as a young comedian named John Mulaney who writes for a game show. Here's the official description:

John’s naïve, and often pointless, desire to "be a good person" challenges his friendship with his roommates Jane and Seymour (Griffin Newman). With no real compass in life, Mulaney takes advice from his game-show host mentor Lou (Martin [...]

Begrudging Respect
A Trunk Full of Criticism: What Carrot Top Gets Right
by Justin Gray | March 13th, 2013
At times Carrot Top’s life seems like some sort of Faustian deal with the devil gone wrong (not that most deals with the devil go right). Carrot Top is one of the most recognizable comics working today and is in incredible shape (even more so now that he has lost the cartoonish bulk of his weightlifting days), yet he is the constant butt of jokes from comedians all over the country, arguably more so than the previous entrants in this series, Jeff Dunham and Larry the Cable Guy. While Larry the Cable Guy and Dunham seem to take their criticism with a grain of salt, Carrot Top [...]