Sing it with us!

Hey, Bellamy Bill!
Where did you kill?
Bellamy Bill!

Hey! Did you hear? Tempe was “the funniest and the most competitive city” of all they visited! How could you not hear that? They stated and re-stated it at least three times! We think they were trying to cover up something… maybe the fact that Tempe was the least funniest and least competitive city of all they visited!

(Why are we using all these exclamation points?!?! Because! That’s how Bellamy Bill talks! He’s merely carrying on the tradition started by the Original Screamer himself– Jay Mohr!)

And just where was Bellamy Bill this week? He sure wasn’t in Tempe. Cushy gig!

The crop of comics, if they were truly the funniest crop so far, were done wrong by the producers and the editors of this episode. We are sorely disappointed that Rocky Laporte didn’t make it to Los Angeles. He’s always been a favorite here.

Did you notice that the hat that John Caparulo was wearing bore a piece of electrical tape over the front in the later parts of the show? What were they hiding? Was it a product that the producers didn’t wanna give free advertising to? Why didn’t they pixelate it like MTV Cribs does? Electrical tape? Kinda goofy. (Why didn’t Caparulo just surrender the hat? Strange! Perhaps that’s his style. Perhaps it’s some sort of fashion statement we’re unaware of. We saw him in the teaser for the next episode and he was hatless! However are we going to identify him if he isn’t wearing his hat?)

Who got through?

Greg Warren
Chuck Roy
Lavell Crawford
Ryan Hamilton
John Caparulo (Cap One Audience Favorite)

Major face time on this episode?

Andrew Orvedahl
Kivi Rogers
Chris Voth
Suli McCullough
Cristela Alonzo
Robin Reiser
Rocky Laporte
Dave Landau
Jay Larson
Brandon Vestal

How about those judges?! The inconsistency is maddening– one comic will get yawns, rim shots and annoying snarls, then the next comic (or two comics later) will do pretty much the same kind of material (or the same basic joke!) and he’ll get applause, howls of laughter and table-pounding approval! This has got to be vexing for anyone who has just a tiny bit more than a superficial understanding of standup comedy.

They practically stopped one comic in mid-sentence for his “I’m the bastard child of (fill in names of celebrities)” joke, then were awestruck by the splendor and the genius of Ryan Hamilton, who said he was the illegitimate child of Jerry and Elaine. What gives? (Perhaps we shouldn’t dump on Ryan Hamilton so much. We dumped on him enough in our coverage of last year’s Boston Comedy Fest Comedy Competition. Link here.)

What happened to the Joke of the Day? Those commercials were driving lots of traffic to our site! Dozens of people (or should we say, cheap bastards) who so desperately wanted to know what one gives to a pig with a sprained ankle or where a general keeps his armies! (For the record, we still don’t know what one gives to a pig with a sprained ankle. As for the general, you’ll have to read our other post!)

Speaking of the joke of the day– Next week’s Celebrity Judge will be Tom Arnold! Apparently unhappy with their current low level of credibility, the producers of Last Comic Standing thought long and hard and wondered, “Who is quite possibly the least respected standup comic of the least decade and a half?” Apparently, Dustin Diamond was too busy dealing with all the fallout from his tumultuous appearance on Celebrity Fat Club!

Tom Arnold was stupendous in The Jackie Thomas Show. And he gives great panel. But a judge? For a standup comedy competition?

We predicted two weeks ago that they wouldn’t be able to stretch Tempe into a full hour, but they damn near did. They teased the upcoming upcoming competition by once again naming all the contestants and throwing in a couple interview snippets. (One of which was a particularly hysterical Joe Devito quote!)

If you ever get frustrated with what transpires on Last Comic Standing, just tune into the handjob that’s going on over at America’s Got Talent! If The Three Redneck Tenors file suit, we’ll gladly act as character witnesses. They were jobbed!! They stay home while Boy Shakira goes to the finals! An abomination!

Note to Joe Lowers: If you’re willing to wear a lot of makeup and dress up like a belly dancer, you could probably score a dozen free dinners in Vegas over the next few weeks. (Boy Shakira bears a striking resemblance to Lowers when he/she smiles. That’s Lowers, below left, and Boy Shakira, below right.)

Also, whilst wallowing in even more reality television earlier this evening, we caught some of Next Best Thing. Standup comic (and celebrity impersonator) Anne Kissel failed to advance to the finals, in spite of a dead-on impression of Roseanne Barr!

And the real Tom Arnold gets face time on Last Comic Standing!