Modified On December 27, 2006
1. Michael Richards melts down at Laugh Factory
And what followed was a circus parade of various figures saying and doing the most ridiculous and shameful things– Factory owner Jamie Masada sets up a virtual swear jar for his comics; Paul Mooney, Dolemite and Oprah Winfrey publicly declare that they’ll reconsider use of the dread N-word; Jesse Jackson parachutes in, Media Whore Gloria Allred reps the “victims”; All the while, the DVD of Seinfeld’s Season Seven sells like hotcakes. Best quote to come out of all of it: “I’ll be damned if the white man uses that word last!” (Damon Wayans upon using the word several times onstage at the Factory– and gladly paying the subsequent “fines.”)
2. 2006: The Year of Dane Cook
He signed a mega-deal with HBO, produced “Tourgasm,” starred in a major motion picture, headlined two MSG shows, caused a stir at a Vancouver comedy club. We could have proclaimed 2005 as The Year of Dane Cook, but Cook topped Cook in the last twelve months. It wasn’t without controversy– everyone from Rolling Stone to Louis CK fans to his fellow comics did their best to take him down a notch or three, but his stock shows no sign of falling.
3. The return of NBC’s Last Comic Standing and HBO’s Comic Relief
After they hosed Alonzo Bodden, everyone (including, probably, Jay Mohr!) thought L.C.S. was dead, done, fini. Not so. It was more popular than ever. It’s back in 2007.
After the media’s obsession with homelessness subsided, everyone (including, probably, Whoopi, Robin and Billy!) thought Comic Relief was dead, done, fini. HBO, however, had different plans– a festival to promote (The Comedy Festival) and a disaster to relieve (Katrina). It’s a win-win-win: Hours of programming, prime exposure for comedians and actors, promotion of the fledgling fest… oh, and Katrina’s victims get some dough, too!
4. 2006: The Year of the Internet and Comedy
MySpace.com creates MySpace Comedy and YouTube is embraced by standup comics and standup comedy fans. And every other week sees the announcement by some huge media entity of their “online comedy initiative.” HBO, TBS, Comedy Central, NBC and others have announced such initiatives where they will, to varying degrees, develop comedy programming and build a site that relies heavily on “user-generated content” and serve as high-tech hothouses for future programming. Right!
So far, we have Lazy Sunday, the Pauly Shore knockout hoax and Chriss Bliss juggling to “Golden Slumbers.”
5. Booing makes an ugly comeback
Reports from the field detail comedy club crowds that have no compunction about booing standup comics, no matter what their level of accomplishment. We can’t wait until polite, icy silence makes a comeback. Who ever thought we’d long for the days of polite, icy silence?
6. Howie Mandel, Bob Saget and Penn Jillette occupy primetime television real estate as hosts of network television game shows
In January, we advocated the kicking of Howie Mandel’s ass. Upon the announcement that he would be hosting a game show on NBC, he (or his publicist) circulated the preposterous notion that such a venture would be death to his career. Of course, we knew different. Mandel has since recanted, thereby prompting us to rescind his ass-kicking fatwah.
Saget’s show is breeding a whole new generation of unsuspecting Saget fans who will be fooled by his warm and fuzzy TV persona into witnessing the hair-curling specatacle that is his twisted, filthy nightclub set!
7. Jon Stewart is hyped as host of the Oscar telecast
We called this one. We praised his performance during the buildup. He was modest, he tried desperately to ratchet down the expectations. The hype was unbearable and we said as much. His performance was tremendous. And we defended him when the MSM tore him a new one. Ellen Degeneres has already been announced as the host of the ’07 telelcast and Stewart will get to host it again when either hell freezes over or Letterman is offered another shot at it– which will be on the same day.
8. Stephen Colbert bombs at the White House Correspondents Dinner
Word of it was carried to all corners of the earth. And they spelled Colbert’s name right. When the dust settled, nobody cared and “truthiness” was named word of the year by dictionary makers Merriam-Webster.
9. Oldster wins SF Comedy Competition
Jay Wendell Walker won the 31st Annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition at the age of 64. This is in direct contradiction to the boneheaded pronouncement of D.C. Improv manager Allyson Jaffe who said, in a piece in the Washington City Paper, that “Once you’re 10-plus years in this business, you only have a certain amount of years to make it.” Walker is simultaneously celebrating his win in the SFICC and his 46th year as a comic.
10. “Shecksism” and “Charlie McCarthyism” continue unabated
The Mainstream Media and their useful idiots perpetuated the notion that standup comics are dull-witted, misogynistic louts.
The assault on standup comedy as an artform and standup comics as people was taken up by Tom Shales of the Washington Post, Nikki Finke of the LA Weekly and Paul Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times. We detailed their crackpot rantings in numerous posts. Bigoted, hate-filled invective propped up flaccid prose in many an article in the MSM in 2006. As always, we pointed it out when we were aware of it. The rigors of such a quixotic campaign makes us weary to our marrow, but our recent two-week break has re-energized us.
SHECKYmagazine coined the term “Charlie McCarthyism” to describe the Comedy Police, Comedy National Guard, Comedy Supreme Court– three MySpace entities that were organizations formed by comedians, of varying experience, ostensibly dedicated to rooting out sub-par comedians, incidents of supposed intellectual property theft and various other standup-related transgressions. We took offense at the attitude, tactics and fallout from such endeavors and we especially took offense at the idea that the accusers sought to remain unnamed. (If we gotta hang our ass out there with our name and likeness emblazoned on our publication, we’ll be damned if these weasels were going to be allowed to operate under the cloak of anonymity.) All three projects eventually withered and died.
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We’re glad to be back at the keyboard. We’ll continue to publish SHECKYmagazine indefinitely. We look forward to the new year and we’re anticipating continued and increased success for us and for all of our hard-working, creative and enterprising colleagues engaged in the coolest occupation of all– standup comedy.
Happy New Year to all our readers! We’ll be here all year! Try the veal!