Joel Kim Booster is the prince of unusual beginnings. As a baby, he was adopted by white, conservative, religious Midwesterners, an experience he sums up this way: “As you can imagine, it was a little weird growing up in the Midwest with this face and that family. I literally knew I was gay before I […]
Continue ReadingWe’ve called them “Genre Queens,” and we stand by it. Between Bounty Hunters , The Place We Live (TPWL), and now unSOLVABLE, co-creators Betsy Kenney and Dara Katz have flexed their parody muscles on action flicks, ’90s dramas about twenty-somethings built for bored thirty-somethings, and true-crime docu-series. Through each, disparate and delightful notes were hit, but they always […]
Continue ReadingIn every great comic’s career comes a time where you have to do press for a thing you made. Sometimes it’s a new special, a big movie role, or a chart-topping podcast. And then sometimes a label decides to re-release your album from a year ago on limited edition blue vinyl. Such is the case […]
Continue ReadingThe notion that a Trump presidency would give comedians so much great material to work with has proven to be a tricky road to navigate. Yet comedians press forward by either addressing the issues head-on or by providing the world with a welcome distraction from the horror. This task proved to be immeasurably more difficult […]
Continue ReadingMark Forward has been performing standup comedy for two decades now, and he’s a bit of an anomaly in a number of ways. He’s a Canadian who doesn’t aspire to pack up and move to the United States to grow his career, instead choosing to remain in his native Toronto. From that base, he’s built […]
Continue ReadingHere it is, the first certified banger of SNL season 43! It’s almost like comedy is better when comedians do it. Who’da thought? Don’t get me wrong, part of the fun for the SNL nerd is seeing people go against their very serious brand. I can ask myself “How are the folks at Studio 8H […]
Continue ReadingFor Sam Jay, comedy is a pursuit of happiness. An unfulfilling job had her questioning what makes her happy. When she really thought about it she realized, “I’m happiest when I’m in a bar, drinking, talking shit to people. There’s a crowd of people around that I don’t even know and I’m ranting or pontificating […]
Continue ReadingMia Mercado (@miamarket) is a writer living in Kansas City originally from Wisconsin. She has written for The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, McSweeney’s, Reductress, Bustle, BUST.com, and Hallmark Cards. Her upcoming projects include giving her dog a bath later and hopefully writing for someone who will pay for her hot takes on Target’s sexual atmosphere […]
Continue ReadingWhite Famous, Showtime’s new Jamie Foxx-produced dramedy series, premieres this Sunday night at 10:00pm. The show stars Jay Pharoah as Floyd Mooney, a rising comedic star who is at a point in his career where he has to weigh his artistic integrity and personal principles against the calcified racism of the entertainment industry. As Floyd’s […]
Continue ReadingConsidering what a boys’ club late night comedy has always been, October 12, 2017 may go down as a historic day, as two new comedy talk shows hosted by women premiered last night: Sarah Silverman’s I Love You, America, which airs on Hulu, and Robin Thede’s The Rundown on BET. About eight minutes into Silverman’s […]
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