Uncomfortable in the green room?
As the editors and publishers of the WWW’s most beloved (and, occasionally, most hated) magazine about standup comedy, we’ve occasionally been trapped in a room with someone about whom we may have said some harsh things. We’re no stranger to that uncomfortable feeling. (Although the discomfiture is largely imagined, one-sided… so far, our opinions haven’t resulted in any busted lips or “ugly scenes.” Most of our encounters with any potential adversaries have turned out to be non-events or, in some cases, downright cordial.)
So we were amused when we noticed that comedian and Frequent SHECKYmagazine Commenter Myq Kaplan appeared on Tonight last night– and that Guest Number One was none other than Wanda Sykes.
Kaplan, readers will recall, was among the contingent that dumped on us for defending Sykes after a blogger for Gawker.tv called Sykes “lazy” and “racist” for telling a particular Tiger Woods joke in a recent monologue on her talk show.
We sure hope the whole brouhaha wasn’t on Kaplan’s mind in the moments leading up to his performance– the last thing anyone needs when preparing for a network television show is any kind of distraction like that!
BTW: Congratulations, Myq. (We spelled it right that time.)
One Response
Reply to: Uncomfortable in the green room?
Thanks very much, Shecky folk.
We had James Cameron on the couch between us, and our own separate dressing rooms, so it was totally fine.
Sincerely, to clarify, I have always found Wanda to be hilarious and it was a pleasure to meet her and be on the show with her.
She is certainly not a lazy racist, and I don’t believe that my “dumping on you” implies that I believe otherwise.
My dumping comments were of a much more general nature, speaking to my understanding of the view (which you seemed to be dumping on) that someone could be disappointed to hear the similar jokes coming from different sources, on the grounds of having one’s goal in comedy to be as original and as funny as possible.
(That is to say, my dumping was anti-your dumping.)
I do understand your assessment that talk-show hosts should be held to different standards than comedians in clubs, and agree, which is why I don’t believe that any one joke (told by Wanda, Conan, Letterman, etc., and likely written by someone else) reflects on that person as a funny person or good comedian. For example, we’ve all seen Conan and Letterman be great at having a joke go over in a less than stellar fashion, yet still maintain being super funny despite that.
So, in conclusion, Wanda is funny (and very nice).
As are many others.
Go, comedy.