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Posts tagged as videolists

Videolists

The Complete Dan Harmon Channel 101 Canon

by | April 18th, 2012

Diehard comedy fans surely know the origin story of Community creator Dan Harmon, but for the uninitiated, I present you with this overview of his early career and a detailed rundown of the shows he created for Channel 101, the live monthly short film festival he started up with friend and frequent collaborator Rob Schrab back in 2003.

Harmon and Schrab first began working together as members of ComedySportz Milwaukee, a short-form improv organization, in the late 80s. In the 90s, they formed the improv and sketch group the Dead Alewives with some friends, performing live shows in Milwaukee and recording a comedy album. More importantly, however, they started [...]

Videolists

Larry David's Almost-Lost Sketches From ABC's SNL Competitor, Fridays

by | April 2nd, 2012

A decade before he started putting Seinfeld together, Larry David was hired as a writer/performer for the ABC live sketch comedy series Fridays, the network’s attempt to make an SNL clone. Fridays ran for three seasons and, for a short period, surpassed SNL in terms of popularity and quality, and David was no small part of the show’s success. Although Larry David is solely responsible for preventing Fridays from being released on DVD, devoted fans have uploaded several sketches online so that we can remember what the show was like.

For somebody who, for the most part, avoided acting for the next two decades, Larry David proves to [...]

Videolists

8 of MADtv's Most Memorable Characters

by | March 8th, 2012

For 14 seasons, Fox's MADtv served as the top sketch comedy show alternative to SNL and helped launch the careers of Artie Lange, Michael McDonald, Alex Borstein, Keegan Michael Key, Jordan Peele, and many others, not to mention former writers like David Wain, Patton Oswalt, SNL's Bryan Tucker, and Up All Night's Emily Spivey. While MADtv may be just another ghost of Sketch Shows Past since its cancellation in 2009, many of its memorable recurring characters are still on the internet waiting to be revisited. Here's a look at eight of them.

Videolists

The 30 Best Videos of Reggie Watts Being Awesome

by | April 13th, 2012

Reggie Watts is a wholly unique entity. What he does and why it's so funny is inexplicable. One thing is for certain, the man is photogenic, videogenic, telegenic, everything-genic. His blend of fro, beard, dexterous mouth, and crazy eyes are the perfect accompaniment to his form of loop-based music/performance art/comedy. Many videographers have realized if you just put a camera on the man, he’ll make some amazing for you. Here are some of the best examples:

Videolists

10 Great Comedy Film Audition Tapes

by | March 21st, 2012

Watching an actor or actress’ screen test or audition tape feels very voyeuristic, like you’re seeing something that’s not supposed to be seen. They’re reading back scenes that, more often than not, will make it into the movie, but they haven’t mastered the role yet — they’re just auditioning, and God knows I wouldn’t want my first draft of, well, anything to be looked at by thousands, if not millions.

But we’re not here to debate the morality of all that: let’s instead take a look at the audition tapes for 10 comedians, from Steve Carell to Emma Stone, for 10 different roles, all of which they eventually [...]

Videolists

8 Memorable Lindsay Lohan SNL Sketches

by | March 2nd, 2012

Tomorrow night, Lindsay Lohan returns to host Saturday Night Live for her fourth time. Her first appearance was on May 1, 2004, one month after the premiere of Mean Girls (she was only seventeen years old), and she most recently hosted on April 15, 2006 to promote A Prairie Home Companion. Since then, she's become somewhat of a paparazzi dream story thanks to her high-speed car chases, jewelry theft, hardcore partying, stints in rehab, and steady flow of court appearances (including one where she sported the infamous "FUCK U" manicure). Will tomorrow's episode be just another trademark Lohan trainwreck, or can we hope [...]

Videolists

10 Great Mr. Show Commercial Parodies

by | April 6th, 2012

During its run on HBO from 1995-1998, Mr. Show not only pumped out countless hilarious sketches (see "Titannica" or "The Story of Everest"), but it also threaded each episode together stream-of-consciousness style, coasting from bit to bit via loopy tangents, transitions, and non sequitur cutaways that solved the issue of ending sketches by tying them together thematically. Among the many ways David Cross and Bob Odenkirk did this was through commercial parodies — everything from political attack ads to PSAs to spots for products like Grandma Betsy's Biscuit Powder. Here are 10 examples of Mr. Show's brilliant use of the commercial parody.

Videolists

The Short Films of Louis C.K.

by | March 19th, 2012

Much has been said about how Louis C.K. singlehandedly writes, directs, edits, and stars in each episode of his acclaimed FX series Louie, but it’s made even more impressive when you consider that he started making films as a teenager.

In the 80s and 90s, Louis C.K. made a series of short films that he credits with preparing him for the heavy workload he’s taken on for Louie. Using his friends from the New York comedy scene, like Amy Poehler, JB Smoove, Robert Smigel, and Todd Barry, as actors, C.K. created a series of short films, some of them reminiscent of the work of his role model Woody Allen [...]

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