Television – Page 139 – ComedyNews.Org :: Comedy News Organization

Jim Bowen obituary

March 14, 2018TheGuardian

Comedian and host of the long-running TV gameshow Bullseye

Jim Bowen, who has died aged 80, claimed he was the fifth choice to host the long-running TV gameshow Bullseye, but the friendly northern comedian proved to be the perfect fit for the role. After a slow start in 1981, shuttling around the schedules, Bullseye’s unsophisticated mix of darts and trivia attracted early Sunday evening audiences of 17 million. For 14 years, accompanied by the show’s mascot, Bully, Bowen delivered the catchphrases: “Keep out of the black, and in the red; there’s nothing in this game for two in a bed” and “Have a look at what you would have won”.

The ITV show brought its host a Rolls-Royce, a house in the country and enduring fame, thanks in part to a catchphrase – “Super, smashing, great” – that he claimed he never actually said. (Although, when one contestant explained that he was unemployed, Bowen did instinctively reply, “Smashing”.) At his 1980s peak, Bowen earned more than £500,000 a year from Bullseye and his standup bookings.

Sir Ken Dodd obituary

March 12, 2018TheGuardian

Comedian with an endless desire to make people laugh known for his tickling sticks, Diddymen and marathon stage performances

The last great “front-cloth” comic of our times, and the last standing true vaudevillian, Ken Dodd, who has died aged 90, was even more than that – a force of nature, a whirlwind, an ambulant torrent of surreal invention, physical and verbal, whose Liverpudlian cheek masked the melancholy of an authentic clown. “This isn’t television, missus,” he’d say to the front stalls, “you can’t turn me off.” And then he would embark on an odyssey of gag-spinning that, over five hours, would beat an audience into submission, often literally, banging a huge drum and declaring that if we did not like the jokes he would follow us home and shout them through the letter-box.

He entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1974 with a marathon mirth-quake at the Royal Court Liverpool lasting three hours, 30 minutes and six seconds. But his solo shows, in which he would perform three 90-minute-plus sets between magic acts, or a female trumpeter (the formidable Joan Hinde), or a pianist playing country music (his partner Anne Jones), frequently lasted much longer. One good thing, he would say, was that you always went home in the daylight. “And the sooner you laugh at the jokes,” he would say, “the sooner you can go home,” as if we were in school. He admitted that his was an educational show – when you did get home you would think: “That taught me a lesson!”

Cool thing to buy: “Atlanta” the complete first season

March 10, 2018TheLaughButton

When Donald Glover’s FX series, Atlanta was first released it was like a breath of fresh air in its uniqueness… MORE

Cool thing to buy: “Atlanta” the complete first season appeared first on The Laugh Button.

Wyatt Cenac’s new HBO series, “Problem Areas” set to debut this April

March 9, 2018TheLaughButton

Wyatt Cenac, longtime correspondent for The Daily Show and former host of Night Train is ready for his next move.… MORE

Wyatt Cenac’s new HBO series, “Problem Areas” set to debut this April appeared first on The Laugh Button.

Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman are “Making It”

March 8, 2018TheLaughButton

For all you Parks And Recreation fans who’ve felt they were missing something since the show went off the air… MORE

Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman are “Making It” appeared first on The Laugh Button.

truTV renews “Impractical Jokers” for season 8, developing feature film with Funny Or Die

March 8, 2018TheLaughButton

It’s pretty plain to see that truTV is in the business of The Impractical Jokers, and why not? The show… MORE

truTV renews “Impractical Jokers” for season 8, developing feature film with Funny Or Die appeared first on The Laugh Button.

Kings of loser comedy: how Flight of the Conchords took off

March 4, 2018TheGuardian

New Zealand’s ‘fourth most popular folk-parody act’ are on a sold-out arena tour. Is there a shrewdness behind the duo’s laidback shtick?

Few comedians ever play London’s O2 Arena and fewer still manage three nights in a row. Those who do tend to have some things in common: a relatable observational style, limited creative ambition and ruthless commercial savvy. None of which applies to Flight of the Conchords, perhaps the unlikeliest act ever to reach those airless heights of the comic stratosphere.

I saw Flight of the Conchords last week, warming up for their forthcoming arena tour with a run at the 140-seat Soho theatre. Watching their suite of kooky songs about medieval romance, piano-playing seagulls and spoon thieves, laughing at their low-key chat and minutely detailed interplay, the thought of their imminent transfer to arena stages was supremely incongruous. Not least to the Conchords themselves. “We’ll keep that in for the O2,” they’d remark, after this or that improvised quip or ramshackle moment of fun.

They’re so dry and so Kiwi. We’re at the bottom of the world, so constant self-deprecation is common in New Zealand

No matter how laidback they are, they always believed they’re good enough. They had their sights set on something big

Kings of loser comedy: how Flight of the Conchords took off

March 4, 2018TheGuardian

New Zealand’s ‘fourth most popular folk-parody act’ are on a sold-out arena tour. Is there a shrewdness behind the duo’s laidback shtick?

Few comedians ever play London’s O2 Arena and fewer still manage three nights in a row. Those who do tend to have some things in common: a relatable observational style, limited creative ambition and ruthless commercial savvy. None of which applies to Flight of the Conchords, perhaps the unlikeliest act ever to reach those airless heights of the comic stratosphere.

I saw Flight of the Conchords last week, warming up for their forthcoming arena tour with a run at the 140-seat Soho theatre. Watching their suite of kooky songs about medieval romance, piano-playing seagulls and spoon thieves, laughing at their low-key chat and minutely detailed interplay, the thought of their imminent transfer to arena stages was supremely incongruous. Not least to the Conchords themselves. “We’ll keep that in for the O2,” they’d remark, after this or that improvised quip or ramshackle moment of fun.

They’re so dry and so Kiwi. We’re at the bottom of the world, so constant self-deprecation is common in New Zealand

No matter how laidback they are, they always believed they’re good enough. They had their sights set on something big

Aidy Bryant is here to get Charles Barkley into hosting shape for this week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live”

March 2, 2018TheLaughButton

After a 3 week break, Saturday Night Live returns with Charles Barkley as the host for the 4th time. In… MORE

Aidy Bryant is here to get Charles Barkley into hosting shape for this week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live” appeared first on The Laugh Button.

Flight of the Conchords review – an intense hit of comic bliss

March 1, 2018TheGuardian

Soho theatre, London
Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement return with hilarious dialogue and new songs that easily scale the dizzy heights of their best work

We knew months ago that Flight of the Conchords were to tour UK arenas. We didn’t know until it was upon us that they’d start with a week’s run at London’s bijou Soho theatre. The run sold out without a shred of publicity, and the show – 90 minutes of blissfully funny musical comedy – reminded us why. They’re a little greyer, a little less deadpan, and with more starry CVs than when they last visited the UK eight years ago: Bret McKenzie won the 2012 songwriting Oscar and Jemaine Clement featured in Moana and The BFG. But tonight, the pair prove with plenty to spare that when it comes to silly and sophisticated comic songwriting, there’s still no one to touch them.

For long-term fans of the erstwhile “fourth most popular folk parody duo in New Zealand”, the evening supplies an intense hit of pleasure. And not just nostalgic pleasure: most of the songs are new, and easily scale the dizzy heights of their best work. Seagull – a hymn to freedom that comes complete with metatextual commentary – seems to be sending up “free as a bird” cliches, before a hilarious reversal. Piano ballad Father and Son finds dad and boy singing in counterpoint – and at crossed purposes – about a parental breakup. “You never know how love will end,” sings Jemaine’s sad dad, “Just don’t let her spend time with your handsomer friend.” Neat how that gauche coinage “handsomer” makes dad seem even more ridiculous. But the track is tender as well as daft, like their earlier Bus Driver’s Song, revived tonight. Or like the best work of Tim Minchin – their only rival as musical comic of the century so far – whose spirit is summoned when Bret takes to his piano.

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