What a year it’s been… for standup comedy and for us.

LENO VS. CONAN

Folks chose sides. We offered a variety of opinions. Jay’s back at 11:30, Conan’s resurfaced on TBS and Jeff Zucker is out at NBC/Uni, which is now owned by Comcast.

THE CONTINUING WAR ON COMICS

Overheard on the radio: “…we hope (Artie Lange) recovers and gets well… but not too well, because we want him to still be funny.”

* * * * *

Nathan Rabin, writing in the Wall Street Journal on the topic of the Leno/Conan donnybrook said, “Funny people drink too much. They squander their money. They use drugs. They’re prone to depression, insomnia and mental illness, to tumultuous relationships and serial divorces.” He wrote this without a hint of irony.

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal conducted a frightening and hamhanded persecution of a comedian who had the temerity to “insult” a pair of lesbians at a club in Vancouver. Guy Earle was pilloried by the press, sold out by fellow comics and ruined financially by the circus. Eventually, he retreated to Nova Scotia with his wife and new baby. His new mission: to show the Supreme Court that there exists a conflict between the HRT code and the Canadian Charter of Freedom.

At least then all this suffering (from every party) won’t be for naught and perhaps there could be a slight chance that I might be regarded as a protector and soldier for our national freedom instead of a nasty-tongued crass gay-hating sexist women-beating tyrant.

* * * * *
Zachary Adam Chesser, better known by his Dungeons & Dragons name of Abu Talhah al-Amrikee, issued a fatwa (he threatened their lives in the name of Islam) against Matt Stone and Trey Parker for depicting the prophet Mohammed wearing a bear suit in an episode of South Park. The idiot later pled guilty to three felonies: communicating threats to the Parker and Stone, soliciting violent jihadists to desensitize law enforcement, and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He’ll be sentenced in February. He could get as much as 30 years in prison. Fingers crossed!

* * * * *
Morley Walker in the Winnipeg Free Press: “…most of what gets spewed from the mouths of modern comedians is not funny.”

* * * * *
From a Canadian comic, we were greeted with an email that opened with, “Stay in Jersey, faggots!” (And we thought we couldn’t have pissed our readers off any more than we had in December 2009, when we were labeled “retardedly open-minded!”)

* * * * *
Of course, such invective pales in comparison to that leveled at Parker and Stone.  And another jihadi created a gas bomb, capable of killing a few hundred people in every direction, and placed it within a few yards of the building that houses the corporation that owns Parker & Stone’s employer, Comedy Central.  Viacom and Comedy Central handled the threat in a cowardly fashion.

* * * * *
St. Petersburg Times TV listings nutshells Last Comic Standing thusly: “Craig Robinson is the new host of this show, which tries to pick the least unfunny comedian out of a group of stand-uppers who can’t cut it in the clubs.”

* * * * *
And, from the mean and dumb Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star:

Last Comic Standing: Now here’s a show that has its priorities straight. First and foremost, it’s funny. The comedians and their so-called careers? Not so important. Hey, it’s harsh, but people don’t tune in to see a bunch of already embittered people lashing out at the judges for not seeing their special talent.

LAST COMIC STANDING RETURNS

The NBC reality series announced a limited schedule of auditions in February– in New York and Los Angeles– and vowed to put the emphasis on the funny. No house, no jester costumes, no contrived challenges. They stayed true to their word and the show regained some of its lost street cred. (And the Halves of the Staff got an inside look at the proceedings!) Will it return in 2011? We don’t know. But we do know that, one year ago tomorrow, NBC announced that the show would return for Season 7. So stay tuned.

And, of course, we auditioned for the show at Gotham, touching off a crazy chain of events that took us to Glendale, CA, and primetime network television appearances.

JOKE THEFT FEVER REFUSES TO DIE

There were several instances of Joke Theft Fever this past year.

Gawker.com acted as fight promoter by staging a row between The Daily Show and comedian James Urbaniak. Urbaniak tweeted a joke… which later turned up on TDS, emanating from the mouth of host Jon Stewart. Gawker tried mightily to turn it into a major crime. They failed.

* * * * *
In a pair of rare cases of a comedian actually, blatantly being ripped off, Patton Oswalt vented on his MySpace blog about getting ripped off– first, by a wannabe comedian at a theater in Iowa and second, by a PoliSci major delivering a commencement speech at Columbia.

The Columbia story is carried by the New York Times. What does Oswalt get for his trouble? Well, the NYT readers who digest the story proceed to take a giant shit on Oswalt in the Times’ comments section. And MovieLine.com’s Christopher Rosen tries to depict Oswalt as some sort of pathetic, self-Googling shut-in who is washed up and has nothing better to do than to defend his intellectual property. (Cross-file this under “The Continuing War On Comics.”)

VIDEO MADNESS

In the waning days of the summer, a video, created anonymously, went mini-viral. Using the online software from xtranormal, someone (who later turned out to be comic Will Lopez) wrote and directed a hilarious animated video that depicted a hapless and desperate comedian attempting to cajole a club owner into booking him at his club. It spawned answer videos. And Lopez cranked out sequels to his original vid, including one that blasted…

KYLE CEASE

The comedian caused quite a stir when he created a traveling workshop that purported to teach aspiring comedians the proper way to write and perform material… for a hefty fee. Enlisting the help of some A- and B-list comedy buddies, Cease presented his seminar in a number of cities and promoted it via an unctuous and rambling 26-minute video interview. We had the gall to take apart the video. A good quantity of shit rained down upon us. But we found out that Cease has nearly as many detractors as he has faithful, cult-like followers. We can certainly relate to that.

IN MEMORIAM

A number of comedians and club owners passed away. Here’s a partial list:

Jean Carroll, Jay Sierra, Ross Rumberg, Ray Garvey, Jus Jay, Irwin Barker, Mike Veneman, Greg Giraldo, Robert Schimmel, Chrissy Burns, Paul Lane, Jocko Alston and Steve Landesberg.

Many of the things that happened this year spawned a lot of great debate. It was quite and interesting year for analyzing standup comedy and some of the issues within the business and the craft and some of the larger issues that comedy is peripheral to.

On a personal/professional level, The Halves of the Staff were even more introspective than usual. We did our best to try and share the whole experience, the whole loopy roller coaster ride, with everyone. We hope that folks derived some benefit from our maundering. From our angle, it was therapeutic.

And, barring any disasters or other unforeseen developments, we’re going to be relocating SHECKYmagazine HQ from So. Jersey to Las Vegas. This will no doubt have an effect on the magazine. For the past few days, we’ve been digging through the magazine’s archives (for a project we’re working on) and one thing we’ve noticed is that we have changed the magazine regularly over the past nearly 12 years. So… a change will once again occur… and we’re confident that it’ll be good for us and, we hope it will be interesting for our readers.

And, if you’re in Las Vegas after Feb. 1, look us up!

Here’s wishing all our readers a happy new year!