Amy Schumer GONE!

Somebody in the PR department at NBC or at Mohegan Sun goofed up! (And before you send in any HATemail, just go back and re-read our post and the comments on the post– we reiterate that we were merely speculating and that the very fact that folks might, for a second, believe that the contest was fixed indicates that the show has a serious lack of credibility. And it has since Day One.)

On to tonight’s episode!

Tonight’s theme was “Comics Are Fuck-Ups In Real Jobs!” They looked back at the final contestants and had them return to an old job. Each video package that resulted was edited for maximum hilarity– Dee as a waiter, Crawford as a crossing guard, Reep as a tire changer. From the looks of things, only Reep got paired with a decent segment producer, as his was the only one approaching funny.

We always imagine what we would do in these “B-roll” situations. Neither one of us has any semblance of a rollicking family situation to come back to ’round these parts. The Female Half has had exactly one job– delivering the Philadelphia Daily News (when she was 12!) for one year (a job that doesn’t even exist any more!) and the neighborhood she grew up in is so dangerous that even a production crew from Cops would say, “No fucking way!” The Male Half’s last legit job was (Yawn!) as a managing editor of a monthly magazine (that hasn’t existed since about 1990 or so.) In short, we’d be a producer’s nightmare!

Bellamy Bill reminded us about the You’re Funny component of the NBC website Last Comic Standing promotion where they asked regular Joe’s to send in clips of themselves being funny. And then, a winner would be chosen (somehow… we’re not sure) and that winner would then be flown to Los Angeles to (“maybe,” says Bellamy Bill, inserting multiple qualifiers) be featured alongside the final two contestants and perform on the final show of the season.

So far as we can tell, very few folks have submitted their “funny.”

“Dust off your prop trunk, dig up your rubber chicken, and videotape your best funny,” said the site. They’re hedging their bets at NBC– apparently the preponderance of clips from people doing impressions in the basement has discouraged the network from playing up the part of the prize where the perpetrator gets to appear before 8 or 9 million primetime viewers. (Perhaps it’s that release they make you sign– From what we can discern, it grants NBC Universal rights to your gag in perpetuity, on mulitple platforms, even via technology that hasn’t been invented, even if someone invents a time machine.)

While we’re on the site– it appears that you can view the B-roll that they shot of Ralph Harris that was left out of last week’s episode. (This also probably means that you’ll be able to see the unused video that they shot of Schumer sorting mail, or whatever her last gig was.)

Amy Schumer played the gender card once again. Shortly after she was eliminated, when she made a final statement to the crowd (actually, two statements were made– her first was, “Support live comedy!”). She also said, “If a girl takes the stage, give her a chance… she may surprise you!” And thousands of people who have never heard of Phyllis Diller, thousands more who think Moms Mabely was a professional softball player and still thousands upon thousands more who think that Roseanne Barr is the local lesbian pub… applauded wildly.

We’re reminded of a quote from Rusty Warren— “a girl who took the stage” in countless nightclubs, singing bawdy ditties and selling millions of vinyl records back about 1960 or so. At a breakfast in Las Vegas in 2001, when the Female Half of the Staff asked Warren how to overcome the perception that female comics shouldn’t be doing risque material, Warren shot back, with a grin, “I blazed a trail… What the fuck is wrong with you?!” The Female Half found it to be “wildly liberating.” The truth of it was huge. So… in the spirit of one generation handing down priceless knowledge acquired from another generation, The Female Half (who had been doing comedy for 18 years prior to Schumer mounting the stage for the first time) would like to tell Schumer: “I also blazed a trail… What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

Josh Blue and Harland Williams were tonight’s guest sets. Blue made a point of saying (at least 2-1/2 times) that he was better than the four remaining finalists. But, of course, he was joking! Yeah! That’s it! He was having a laugh!

Williams did a bit that was very similar to a bit that The Female Half’s been doing for some time. And she’s not in the mood to give up the joke yet– especially considering that she “just wrote stuff to go around it,” says she. So, in the interest of setting the record straight, we present this clip:

(Clip removed due to technical difficulties!)

Next week’s guest comics are Greg Proops and Kathleen Madigan.

Remember this: When Kathleen Madigan takes the stage, give her a chance. She might surprise you.

Addendum: Crawford did his diabetes bit. So, we thought we would take this opportunity to educate folks about “The Sugar” by linking to this interview. It’s from Kerri Morrone’s blog (“Diabetes doesn’t define me, but it helps explain me.”) and on it, she interviews comics Bill Kirchenbauer and Brad Slaight in their Captain Glucose and Meter Boy personae!