Welcome to our Fall Comedy Reads series, where we take a closer look at some of the newly released comedy-related books worth checking out this month. The Firesign Theatre started in the late ‘60s by four men, Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor, who has co-written a memoir with Brad Schrieber entitled Where’s My […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to our Fall Comedy Reads series, where we take a closer look at some of the newly released comedy-related books worth checking out this month. The Firesign Theatre started in the late ‘60s by four men, Phil Austin, Peter Bergman, David Ossman, and Philip Proctor, who has co-written a memoir with Brad Schrieber entitled Where’s My […]
Continue ReadingMuch of the buzz for this week’s SNL surrounds “Welcome to Hell,” a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu-esque pop number about all the men being exposed as predators this year. It was a fun take on an exhausting and triggering news cycle. Yet other sketches in this episode were downright yucky in their sexual politics. Comedy is […]
Continue ReadingIn this era of “peak TV” it’s easy for genuinely great comedies to fly under the radar. But as more and more streaming shows create tons of edgy buzz or controversy, network sitcoms can feel far more ignored than they used to be. So maybe that’s why it took a friend’s suggestion for me to […]
Continue ReadingWhen Johnny Carson took over as host of The Tonight Show in 1962, there was no sense that he would last 30 years in the job. Television talk shows were in their infancy, and The Tonight Show’s previous two hosts (Steve Allen and Jack Paar) had done such different jobs there was no real standard format […]
Continue ReadingIn 2012, Hari Kondabolu — then a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell — went on a rant that had been long overdue. In a clip that quickly became viral, he expressed his anger at Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, The Simpsons’ Indian convenience store clerk voiced by Hank Azaria. Kondabolu spoke of the bullying he […]
Continue ReadingChance the Rapper’s SNL episode could never have happened without the show’s recent, much needed diversity push. Chance could have hosted before, but he wouldn’t have starred in four sketches where the majority of players were black. These sketches varied greatly in style and content and wigs: there was a straight sketch, a mockumentary, a […]
Continue ReadingNote: Spoilers for the first season follow. Search Party’s first season began over brunch, in Brooklyn. Its core cast, four friends in their twenties dealing with privileged ennui, learned that an old college acquaintance Chantal had gone missing. Dory, played by Alia Shawkat, was particularly shaken, though she couldn’t articulate why. Working a soul-crushing job […]
Continue ReadingThe best episodes of live television have a nervous excitement to them. People are stoked to be there, on camera, knowing they have the power to cuss but that they’re not going to. Tiffany Haddish, who blew up this past summer from her role in Girls Trip, brought that enthusiasm. Haddish was the first black […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to our Fall Comedy Reads series, where we take a closer look at some of the newly released comedy-related books worth checking out this month. When it began in 1996, The Daily Show was nothing like what it would become. Hosted by Craig Kilborn, the show dealt mostly with light entertainment news and had a mean-spirited […]
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