Unsung comedians get… sung in USA Today

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on May 12th, 2010

Whitney Matheson’s Pop Candy column is an institution on USA Today’s website. (We’ve been mentioned there twice over the last eleven years, making Matheson a Media FOS!)

Her latest installment is a “Pop Five,” which is a list of five (things, people, places) submitted by a Pop Candy reader.

This one, from “Jason S.,” a bourgeoning (sic) stand-up comedian in L.A. and New York,” lists the “Five Best Comedians You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.”

They are:

Brian Scolaro
Nikki Paine
J. Chris Newberg
Kyle Kinane
Brody Stevens

Jason S. describes each and prefaces the whole list by stating that “it really is mind-boggling how many great comedians are out there.” We concur.

And it’s great to see a comedian so willing and eager to sing the praises of a handful of colleagues. And it’s refreshing to see positive press on comedians in a major publication. Who is this Jason S.? (Who also goes by the name of Jokergonzo?) Is he/she really a “burgeoning comedian?” Or… is he/she one of the five? (If it is, it’s pure genius!)

We’re proud to say we’ve heard of all these comics– We’ve only seen Payne on Last Comic Standing. But we just hung out with both Newberg and Scolaro last month when the Male Half worked at Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. We were delighted by Kinane’s quirkiness when we saw him perform at Zanie’s in Chicago during a Chicago Comedy Festival way back in 2001 or so. And, though we have never worked with Brody Stevens, we did have the pleasure of meeting him at the Improv on Melrose and his mug appears deep in the pages of SHECKYmagazine (or it will, once Blogger fixes our art problem)!

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