We’re blogging from the Cleveland Improv comedy condo… there’s a VCR/TV combo (how quaint!) and we found a VHS copy of “Any Given Sunday” that had a My Name is Earl already taped over the first third of it. So we set the VCR and it seems to have worked. (This also explains why we were late in our analysis this evening. Our show at the Improv wasn’t over until 9:50 or so.)

Marcus… He’s an impressonist… so we suppose it’s okay that he was doing an Attell impression… But he didn’t do any impressions of Attell doing impressions… What gives? (And during the packaged piece, his Adam Sandler sounded like Walter Brennan! But, to be fair, one of Adam Sandler’s default voices/personae is pretty much Walter Brennan. And, if a significant number of you must Google “Walter Brennan,” then Sandler’s appropriation of the Brennan voice is more like archaeology than )

So he does the Walken impression while being evalutated by the celebrity scouts. Hey, no fair!

Dan Cummins is cornering the market this season in the quirky, offbeat department. His set was surprisingly cohesive for being a series of short, discreet bits, like a Steven Wright or Mitch Hedberg set.

Iliza Shlesinger speaks in a normal voice, then occasionally does the little girl voice… We suppose she could never share the bill with Maria Bamford (who speaks in the little girl voice and occasionally slips into the normal voice). Imagine the confusion and consternation! Imagine the fistfights to determine who goes on first, who goes on last!

Eddie Pepitone did one of the more unconventional sets– on this episode, on this season. It was off-kilter, and we wondered how he would have fared in the Heckler Challenge!

Erik Griffin was the Last Comic Driving tonight. He got the best response from the passengers so far. (But not a standing ovation… Just what is Fearne Cotton’s obsession with standing ovations? It’s unseemly!) We don’t buy the whole Last Comic Driving premise– what comic would be allowed to speak that long in a car? Unless he’s telling a particularly juicy story about a booker, a comedian just isn’t going to be allowed to drone on and on,doing material, like that!

Let’s remind folks of who made it into the finals:

God’s Pottery
Adam Hunter
Jeff Dye
Ron G
Paul Foot
Iliza Shlesinger
Marcus
Jim Tavaré
Esther Ku
Louis Ramey
Sean Cullen
Papa C.J.

Those in bold are the comedians that our intelligence says make it into the finals. (And, furthermore, we heard that Papa C.J. and Esther Ku are gone in short order, in one of the next two episodes.)

Stone and Stone we want to see them forty years from now. Now that would be spectacular! Two 70-year-old identical twins that have been around for four decades! That would be/will be amazing! They are very old school. It’s bizarre: They don’t have a straight man! How do they write? It’s the only non-old school facet of the act. (Actually, they could alternate… each could take the other’s part… for all we know they are/they do!) We’re taken by the uberblank expressions on their faces. An animated version of Stone and Stone would be hysterical! Sort of a post-modern, Jewish Chip & Dale!

Papa C.J.‘s delivery and presentation is… raw? Amateurish? He’ll be a totally different comic three years from now. Is it really there yet? We aren’t surprised that he’ll be booted off early on. We’re kinda surprised (even by the LCS quirky, through the looking glass rules) that he got this far. The comedy calmness/confidence hasn’t yet settled over him.

Mary Mack (who “just might be the next great voice of comedy,” says Bill Bellamy) shifted into her hourlong set-rhythm for her three-minute set. Kind of a long approach on a short runway. Our talent scouts, agreed. She protested when it was pointed out that she took too long to get started, saying that she just wanted everyone to be comfortable. “We were so comfortable that we were almost sleeping,” said Schirippa (and we must agree with him).

Bob Biggerstaff‘s set of self-deprecating, fat jokes was well constructed and sprinkled with enough odd references (and sold with enough quirk) to separate it from other similar sets. Biggerstaff got a regular, steady response. We were reminded of Drew Carey. He made the best of his exposure on primetime television.

Out of all the contestants, Louis Ramey seems to be the most sincere and most in control of his emotions when it comes to how he feels about this competition. His set demonstrated many things– he’s ready for a big, Vegas room, his appeal is broad, his material is clever, his wildly professional. He’s still the favorite to win, as far as we’re concerned. He echoed our sentiments exactly when, upon exiting the stage, he said to the camera, “Now, that’s how it’s done.”

Sean Cullen‘s “You’ve Got A Friend In Porn” failed to get a big yuk on the initial punchline. Ouch! The rest of the song was rough sledding. We’re surprised he got through tonight based on that performance. Perhaps he needs the Juice Pigs to pull it off. A Juice Pig-less Corky was not flying in Vegas tonight.

John Evans got swallowed up by the giant stage and the huge theater. He came across as a comic better suited to a small, intimate venue.

Heath Hyche‘s Elvis bit is one of the funniest things we’ve ever seen. It would have been nice (and very appropriate) if he could have done it in Vegas, baby! But it’s not one of those things that could (or should) be done in a three-minute format like this one. They undermined his set by showing the scouts exchanging disgusted looks dead in the middle of the Kamikaze sketch. But the choice he made on this evening backfired. (The audience dug it, but the celebrity scouts were brutal!)

Did anyone understand Esther Ku‘s first joke? We didn’t. If Belzer is allergic to ethnic stereotypes in 2008, we suppose he’ll take a similarly dim view of Ku’s set tonight– “Can I see your ricense and registration, preese?” (We also wonder if he’s allergic to stereotypes about cops as well.)

“It’s legal for an ethnic group to make fun of itself,” says Belzer, when asked to evaluate Ku. (It’s legal? Perhaps Belzer could be technical advisor for the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. We were saying equally ridiculous things last week– we were kidding. Sadly, Belzer is not.)

Jackie Kashian‘s set was a sitcom pitch, a hilarious combination of a cohesive standup set and a sitcom pitch.

They flashed to Louis Lee (in the audience) during Pete Lee‘s set. (Louis Lee is the proprietor of Minneapolis’ Acme Comedy Co.) No relation.

Jim Tavaré is old, old school. Henny Youngman longer jokes and longer arms and a bigger instrument, if you’ll pardon the expression. It will be interesting to see if anyone can figure out what to do with him. “Dead man walking,” he said when he exited and passed by the camera. Not a happy man, in spite of Belzer’s very complimentary assessment.

It’s Marcus, Jim Tavaré, Esther Ku, Papa CJ, Sean Cullen, Iliza Shlesinger and Louis Ramey.

Check out the look on eveyrone’s face when Bellamy announced that there are only two tickets left. What is that all about? There were five last week and seven this week. Perhaps they were all confused about the discrepancy.

Next week’s teaser depicts the comics doin’ the dozens! Now that is cutting edge, people. Forcing comics to do fify-year-old material while wearing boxing regalia. This is what it’s all about. Our hearts swell with pride.

We’re in Cleveland, at the Improv, tonight! Then tomorrow night! Then the following night! The room will be dark on Friday night, because that’s the Fourth of July. Then we’re there again Saturday and Sunday night!

Go to the Cleveland Improv site for showtimes and/or to purchase tickets.

And check out the ClevelandYucks.com interview with The Male Half! (Right on the front page!) The gentlemen from ClevelandYucks, Mike Baker and Jeff Blanchard conducted a spirited interview with The Male Half in anticipation of our arrival in Cleveland!

(Dear Readers: Before you read tonight’s analysis of Last Comic Standing, you are required to read the post below entitled “And then they came for the comedians…”)

Tonight’s analysis of Last Comic Standing is brought to you by the members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. We will view tonight’s episode of Last Comic Standing very carefully. We will be looking for any material “that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt, based on 11 specific grounds such as race, gender or religion,” in accordance with the Canadian Human Rights Act, Section 13, Chapter 1.

Bill Bellamy in his tin-foil suit did about 30 seconds of material to get the show started. His topic of discussion mainly focused on the advanced age of many of the headliners in Las Vegas. He held such performers as Tom Jones, Barry Manilow and Joan Rivers in contempt. He subjected them to embarrasment and no doubt offended them and offended anyone of advanced age. We shall review a transcript of Mr. Bellamy’s routine before we make a determination of the relative offensiveness of tonight’s opening performance.

Adam Hunter focused on Asians, Muslims and gay people. He was offensive. It was a sickening display. We have ordered Commission interns to begin paperwork, as Mr. Hunter will definitely face a tribunal.

After his set, in front of the other contestants, Hunter said to Fearne Cotton, “If everything’s fair, I’ll win.” Rather insensitive! How dare he invoke fairness? The winner will be determined based on a number of criteria. But Mr. Hunter can rest assured that whichever outcome eventuates, it will be the best for all concerned and will promote, not so much fairness, as harmony, diversity and high self-esteem for all participants. Mr. Hunter, a white male, has some nerve to be expecting fairness.

Phil Palisoul did little else besides self-deprecating humor. We view this as a positive thing– the correct tack to take for any white male oppressor who attempts to win our favor in an attempt to garner laughs. He could only have done a better job had he made more fun of other white males!

Jeff Dye will be doing $100,000 of college gigs next year. That’s our prediction. Members of the commission were thankful that Mr. Palisoul allowed us some respite from the hate speech. But, Mr. Dye, in his bit about how attractive womyn dress at the gym, was, in effect, blaming the victim. This is unacceptable. Again, a review of the video might be required. (Mr. Dye can take heart that he will be able to use some of that college money to defend himself against the tribunal. We are secure in the knowledge that none of that revenue will come from any Canadian colleges!)

We commend Erin Foley! Her material was delightfully inoffensive! She touched on such safe topics as baby showers, orange juice and dictionaries. We were somewhat dismayed when she made light of a possible lack of preparedness on the part of female sports reporters. But, as Ms. Foley is also part of the aggrieved group in this case, we must regard her remarks with a certain tolerance.

Dan Naturman‘s set was blessedly free of any language or concepts that might have caused any individuals or groups consternation. And it was funny as well! (Although, we had to depend on non-commission members to make that determination, as we here at the CHRC lack anything that resembles a sense of humor.)

Jacob Sirof competed for Last Comic Driving. He was clever and clean and inoffensive. However, some of our operatives have brought to our attention a video clip of Mr. Sirof’s routine about racism. Although Mr. Sirof seems to be making a very valid point about racism, in the course of making said point, he says that one would have just as much chance of finding an African-American at a NASCAR event as one might find “a Mexican at a Crate & Barrell.” This is hate speech, plain and simple. We direct your attention to the evidence here.

The Israeli (excuse us, the Zionist) named Lioz Shem Tov with the French accent (we simply must look into that!) did some clever, but somewhat risqué material with his props. But we couldn’t focus… the plight of millions of Palestinians nagged at us the entire time. We shall review the tape and make a determination at a later date!

Dale Jones made fun of sex workers. The plight of sex workers is not something that is appropriate fodder for humor. And, while Mr. Jones’ performances was not offensive enough to warrant further investigation, we are going to tag him and his appearances for further examination.

African-American woman Erin Jackson was delightful, in command and presented a set that was packed with several jokes on a variety of topics that were strung together nicely. We were somewhat concerned that she came disturbingly close to reinforcing negative stereotypes, particularly as regards African-American males. However, as she is a member of two groups which have historically experienced discrimination (or worse!), we are willing to accept that she meant her jibes to be constructive rather than destructive. We are certain that even the objects of her humor were well aware of Ms. Jackson’s benign intent. As such, we will not consider any action against Ms. Jackson.

Mr. Bellamy implied that those who are forced to use semi-portable motorized vehicles to ambulate are not in fact in need of such assistance and are instead simply, to use his hateful term, “lazy.” This is unacceptable. We will wait until the end of the episode to make a determination on whether or not Mr. Bellamy’s intent is malignant.

God’s Pottery are perfect! They seem to limit their satiric (and rather sharp!) barbs to religon and those who practice it. We’ve got an inquiry into the producers of the show, as we want to book them for the annual Canadian Human Rights Commission Picnic and Fundraiser!

Young, intelligent, atractive African-American monologist Ron G. delivered a cohesive spoken essay about getting terminated. Child abuse, however is not funny, nor will it ever be. His brief joke in which he depicts his mother striking him could very well convey the very dangerous idea that is it permissible to discipline children with physical violence. The commission is torn as to how to approach Mr. G.

Drennon Davis, through his “rap bit” held African-Americans up to ridicule. (A commission member who has done a handful of open mikes up here in Vancouver told us that he should have moved the mike stand. He also described his mike technique as “annoying.” We are not familiar with the conventions of performance, so we can make no determination on those matters. Nor do we pretend to be able to do so.) However, we are prepared to say that Mr. Drennon, the white male oppressor, will be warned that his offensive comedy could result in action. Beyond that, we are not at liberty to comment.

Winston Spear as all good Canadians should, said nothing offensive! We applaud him! However, we are uneasy about his first name, Winston. As this is the name of one of the most popular brand of cigarettes (both here and in America), we might strongly suggest to Mr. Spear that he change his first name. Promoting the use of tobacco, in any way, no matter how subtly, is unacceptable.

What a conundrum strong, authoritative Muslim womyn Shazia Murza presents us. She is female and she is Muslim, yet she makes several awful, biting remarks about Muslims. She makes no distinctions, either, leading the audience to believe that all Muslims behave in the manner she describes. She allows for absolutely no variations among the planet’s one billion Muslims, instead regarding them as a monolith. This, to the Commission, is the very essence of bigotry. We condemn her in the strongest possible language and we are sorely disappointed that, while she had the opportunity to educate and unite, she instead perpetuated divisive stereotypes and quite possibly made the planet that much more hate-filled.

Paul Foot performed next and, to most observers, offended no one. However, he did imply that people with vaginas walk slowly. Sexism has become so second-nature to us that we oftimes don’t recognize it when it is staring us in the face! While Mr. Foot’s transgression was not so egregious as to warrant immediate action, we will make a note in his file. And, since he is British, we shall also alert our colleagues at Citizenship and Immigration.

Andi Smith, though a woman, seemed unsympathetic to the uneducated, the disabled and those sisters who find themselves in the heartbreaking position of bearing an unwanted child. These people deserve not our scorn, but our compassion.

The Meehan Brothers evoked imagery of Nazis with their “Goosestepping for Gout” crack. Their entire set seemed designed to make light of those who devote their lives to the charity industry. And their humor seemed to play on a shameful tendency to laugh at hideous diseases (many that often strike children and other innocents).

As the members of the commission are avid and regular readers of SHECKYmagazine.com, we are well aware of who the five acts are who go onto Hollywood

Adam Hunter
God’s Pottery
Paul Foot
Ron G.
Jeff Dye

The press release heralds the opening of a new comedy club on Long Island, in Farmingdale. It’s called National Lampoon’s Comedy House and the plans are for more clubs in (so far, at least) eight locations.

Based on one of the world’s most recognized comedy brands, National Lampoon, National Lampoon’s Comedy House was founded in 2008 and is wholly owned and operated by Comedy House LLC, whose management includes renowned comedy producer, Marty Fischer, has more than 50 years in the comedy industry. National Lampoon’s Comedy Houses first location opened in Farmingdale, NY in June 2008. Additional expected domestic locations include Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia as well as international locations including Hong Kong, London and Scotland. For more information, please visit www.nationallampooncomedyhouse.com.

The website also says they’re opening clubs in Florida, Texas and Atlantic City. But we’re particularly interested in the Philadelphia location, as we’re minutes away. We’re still smarting over the loss of Rascals, a club we headlined on a regular basis, which was only seven minutes from our SHECKYmagazine HQ.

Licensing the Lampoon name sounds like a smart play– the magazine’s association with funny, with irreverence, with a certain sensibility represented by the Animal House movie and the Radio Hour (and all the characters and people associated with those projects like Belushi, Bill Murray, Christopher Guest, Michael O’Donoghue, P.J. O’Rourke, etc.) instantly conveys what the club is all about.

Comedian Alysia Wood recently attended a barbecue that attracted a sizeable chunk of the Seattle comedy community. The reunion prompted her to reflect on her experience in that city’s comedy scene. Her MySpace blog, entitled “Seattle BBQ” contains mini-tributes to some of the people that had an impact her in those crucial early years.

Open mic was also your first stop from the road. Cell phones and the internet weren’t widely used so if you wanted to know what was going on in the constantly evolving scene then you were wise to stop by open mic. Sitting in the “cave” of the underground, comics chain-smoked, drank, swapped their new road stories and gave out bookers’ info. There was a huge turf war between Giggles and the Undergrounds, the only clubs at the time, but even the owner of Giggles would stop in from time to time. I equate it to a dysfunctional family: you really had to fuck up to not be welcome.

I didn’t know how amazing my comedy community was until I started touring the country and moved multiple times, immersing myself in other scenes. It wasn’t even close to what we call an “A room” but I still believe it’s the best club in the country– especially since you were never censored. The club never paid weekend acts well but the audiences were smart and savvy– which meant at least once a year, a legendary act would stop by to work on their material for an upcoming special or release. I could NOT have been more grateful to work with those comics.

I remember Brad Upton saying, “Enjoy these years. They don’t get better than this.”

Read the whole thing.

We attended a similar gathering, to celebrate 25 years of Philadelphia’s Comedy Works, a few years back and we are at a loss to figure out why clubs and markets and comics don’t organize gatherings like this on a more regular basis.

Also: Read this account of our national/international Comics-Only Reunion in Las Vegas, that we engineered back in 2001.

With Jay Dixit, a senior editor at Psychology Today, on June 13.

The lady in my life Sally Wade and I are waiting for our house to be finished remodeling. We’re in temporary quarters. It’s kind of onerous. We’re lucky we found a place right down the street but the price we pay for being right down the street is that it’s not really suitable in terms of space and structure for our needs. So we’re really in combat duty. It’s been a tough time. Not so tough you can’t work it out, you know, but just enough so it’s broken some of my work habits. And I’m enjoying my break from them and I know where I have to go on the next book, I have a book that I’m going to start organizing the files, reorganizing, renaming, reclassifying, putting things together, taking things apart. And there’ll be another HBO show as these pieces on stage begin to take form.

Read the whole thing here.

Thanks to John Kensil.

18 months ago, John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei left The Washington Post to create The Politico, a multi-platform, political news content creator. Their Speak To Power feature is described thusly:

The Politico is forgoing a traditional editorial page and, instead, inviting you to weigh in on the important issues confronting Congress and the country. This is your chance to reach lawmakers and their top staff members directly, because The Politico newspaper is delivered right to their doorstep. And you decide which reader-written editorials appear in our paper and online.

We couldn’t resist. For a few years now, the health insurance situation in the Garden State has frustrated us here at SHECKYmagazine. Back a few years ago, the boys in Trenton “reformed” health insurance in our state and severely restricted the number of firms that could offer Garden Staters insurance. When they were done meddling, the highest-priced plan cost $166,704 per person per year and the lowest plan cost $5,873.80 per person per year, or $11,745.60 to insure our household. And that’s with a $2,500 deductible!

So the Male and Female Halves of the Staff have written an editorial outlining their frustrations and urging the passage of a piece of legislation that might make life easier. It’s currently on the top of the page at Speak To Power. An excerpt:

HR 4460 is a bill sponsored by Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ). The Health Care Choice Act of 2007 would obliterate New Jersey’s locked game with regard to insurance. If I understand it correctly, an insurer from another state would be able to offer us affordable health insurance and would be exempt from the onerous laws of Jersey as long as certain minimal and reasonable conditions are met.

We would be free to shop all over the U.S. Under the pretense of protecting us (and “reforming” health insurance) New Jersey has prohibited this simple process for over a decade.

Go here to read the editorial and, if you want to help out the Male Half of the Staff, cast your vote! It will slide down the page (and migrate to subsequent pages) as more editorials are posted, so you may have to hunt for it in a few days. (The editorial with the most votes will be printed in the Politico’s print edition, distributed to lawmakers and shakers throughout the D.C. region.)

There are a lot of comedians living in Jersey. They would benefit from the passage of HR4460!

AP is saying that legendary standup comic George Carlin has died in a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 71.

It is believed that heart failure was the cause.

His death comes just five days after the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that Carlin would be the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in a ceremony scheduled for November 10, 2008.

It is quite amazing that he was, at age 71, so busy and so much in demand. His schedule through December would be grueling for a comedian half his age– Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Atlantic City, Reno, eight nights over 11 days at the Orleans in Vegas. At a time when many comedians might be winding down, Carlin was filling a calendar and selling out halls at an astonishing pace.

It is also worth noting just how many contemporary comedians cite him an influence.

We had the pleasure of meeting him backstage at Bally’s in Vegas a few years ago, and we watched his show from the sound booth.

On another occasion, a few years earlier, we were gigging at Catch A Rising Star in Bally’s when Carlin was performing for a week in the main showroom. We were on an elevator sharing the ride up to our floor with about half a dozen other people when something made a noise which sounded like a fart. One man, amidst the group of passengers, cradling a small dog in the crook of his arm, said, “Must have been lunch.” The elevator cracked up. The Female Half then said, “Why didn’t you just blame it on the dog.” Upon hearing this, the man with the dog laughed heartily. Everyone else on the elevator seemed… less than pleased.

The elevator doors open, the man with the dog gets off. A few stops later, so does everyone else. When the Male Half and the Female Half find themselves in the elevator alone, the Male Half says, “I can’t believe you had the nerve to top Carlin.”

The Female Half had absolutely no idea that the man with the pooch was actually George Carlin. (She was too busy staring at the tiny dog to recognize the comedy giant.)

Let’s recap: The folks who got red envelopes (according to our sources) were Shazia Mirza, Stephen K. Amos. Kojo and Paul Foot. (And so, apparently, did Jim Tavaré, as evidenced by his presence in the final twelve.)

So… They shipped over psychos and amateurs as well as serious acts? They’ve gone too far. Is it cost-effective for the show to purchase plane fare from Tokyo, London, Dublin, Accra, Bombay and Sydney for a few dozen comics– in order to have a charade of an “international” showcase in Miami– when they could have easily had showcases in all the respective capitals and sent the winners over for a real international showdown in, say, Los Angeles (one of the truly international cities on the planet)? Or… did they merely video a bunch of comics coming down the escalator at the Miami Aiport– who actually live in Miami? (Or Raleigh, or Atlanta, or Jersey Ciy?) Or are they all living in London? (A chartered flight from London, with all the contestants onboard, would be pretty cheap.)

They hadn’t been showing quick-cut montages of the acts for 10 seconds at the top of the show before they showed two shirtless males. Two.

The bald fellow with the bass, Jim Tavaré, we remind all, makes it into the final twelve.

Last Comic Driving: Alycia Cooper. Did we not see her in one of the other audition cities? Is this what LCD is for? The folks who got a Red Envelope but were hosed eventually? They couldn’t accomodate all of them. There are only ten LCD contestants.

Didn’t we see “Sam” the comic who “just flew in from Armenia,” during the New York auditions?

Maybe the appeal of Paul Foot, according to the scout that wore the 30 Rock shirt, is that “he puts a smile on your face, but you’re not really sure why.” Ah! We see. This is the future of standup comedy. The artist creates an uneasy grimace on the face of half (or more!) of the audience and this is the appeal! The practitioner of Future Standup sneaks up to a joke, never really delivers an obvious punchline and presents something more akin to a lecture or a mildly neurotic screed, the better to create a pall over the crowd. NBC, after all, is hot and bothered about “awkward moments.” Perhaps they are gently nudging the culture to appreciate awkwardness as a legitimate and satisfying feeling.

The guy from India, Papa CJ, says “Standup comedy doesn’t really exist in India.” As any reader of this magazine knows, this is flat-out false. We went to the top of the front page of SHECKYmagazine and Googled “India” and clicked the radio button that says “SHECKYmagazine.com” and it returned this— three pages of postings about standup comedy in India that have appeared in our pages over the past two or three years.

A “Baby onboard” joke? On network television in 2008? Yes! And it gets you to the final twelve in Las Vegas.

Shown getting the ol’ red envelope: Shazia Mirza, Jim Tavaré, Lioz Shem Tov, Paul Foot, Papa CJ.

We didn’t initially identify Jim Tavaré as being among that gang. Nor did we name Lioz Shem Tov. But, our info had Kojo and Stephen K. Amos– Neither of them were shown accepting an envelope tonight. (They may be two of the Unlucky Sixteen!)

The Vegas segment is maybe just a hair more annoying and painful to witness than we thought it would be. Competing for laughs at the front desk? Roommate banter? We got it all!

“Our finalists have never been on a stage as large as the one here at the Paris!” says Bellamy in the voiceover. Uh… Sean Cullen was on the stage, repeatedly, during Ellen Degeneres’ huge Vegas special, shot at Caesar’s. And Heath Hyche was a member of the cast of the Blue Collar Comedy Show on TBS, so we figure he was on a few large stages. And Louis Ramey no doubt has mounted a few large casino stages in his career. Nothing wrong with any of that… just sayin’ is all.

Next week, the show is two hours long and it starts at 8PM. So, set your VCR. Or make sure you’re at your computer at about 10:15 or so EDT. We’ll be watching.

From here on in, the show gets far more interesting, as we’ll see many comics doing more than 30 seconds of standup. And in front of a large, live audience, instead of just doing if for two celebrities in an empty room.

Editors note: In the above analysis, we snorted that it seemed rather odd that a comedian (in this case a British comedian) would do a “Baby On Board”-sign joke in 2008, seeing as how that trend ran here in the United States for about 18 months (in 19854-85), thereby making the reference about a quarter-century old. But, according to Wikipedia (FWIW), the B.O.B signs are still quite popular in England and Japan. It’s always a tricky business to re-word a bit (or re-arrange an entire set) to make it travel from your home country to another. We know this from playing Canada. Similar though they may be, there are subtle differences between the two nations that can wreak havoc with jokes and references.

On February 18, just after our encounter with Bill Bellamy at the secret audition in Atlanta, we posted about an earlier secret audition held for Last Comic Standing in Miami:

About three weeks ago, thirty or so comics were flown from London to Miami for 2 days. It had all the glamor of a cattle call. Acts were hauled out of bed at 6:30 AM just so they could wait around for hours and hours.

Stage one: All the acts did their five minutes to the producers. (It really felt like they were casting a reality show rather than looking for the best comics.)

Stage two: Those chosen went on to perform for the judges and then to a competition in a comedy club in the evening.

Shazia Mirza
Stephen K. Amos
Toju
Paul Foot

That international audition will soak up a good chunk of tonight’s episode. We’ll be watching at 8:30 PM EDT. It’s 90 minutes. We’ll upload shortly after 10.

The second portion of the show will be a tease of Vegas. (And, of course, there will be no footage of the secret auditions in Atlanta. Or Detroit. Or Raleigh.)

Some Chicago political hack wants to pass a law that will require mountains of paperwork, fees, proof of insurance, fingerprinting and licensing for people wanting to produce live entertainment in the Windy City. Some folks who participate in/promote improv in that town are understandably agitated.

Speculation is rampant. Some believe it will kill all but the most established promoters/venues that present standup and improv. (Conversely, it would stifle or outright obliterate any upstart or independent who wanted to produce comedy at smaller venues in the city– open mikes, plucky, new improv troupes seeking to establish themselves, etc.)

Jim Derogatis of the Sun-Times runs the entire text of the ordinance on his blog along with the reaction of one group with a stake in the outcome. Paragraph one of that reaction:

The Chicago Music Commission shares the City’s commitment to ensuring the safe and responsible enjoyment of entertainment in Chicago and strongly concurs with the City’s goal of rooting out illegitimate “underground” promoters operating in Chicago with sometimes dangerous consequences while not overburdening Chicago’s vibrant music scene. However, we cannot support this ordinance in its current form.

Is the CMC being way too deferential there? Perhaps that’s the Chicago Way. Exactly what are the “sometimes dangerous consequences” that result in someone putting on a show? (Points will be taken off for those who mention the E2 stampede. It seems the owners were acquitted of any wrongdoing.)

Read the comments at the end of Derogatis’ lengthy post for more insight and speculation.

What it comes down to is this: Is there really a whole lot of danger to the life and limb of Chicago theater/club/rave attendees because of independent, out-of-town promoters, and, if so, should the solution involve fingerprinting, licensing and bureaucracy? Or is this just a naked power-/money-grab by politicians who spend a good portion of their day dreaming up ideas for new revenue-streams for the government?

We’ll save you the trouble: It’s the latter.

Or is it just a convenient way for Chicago to essentially grab a huge piece of the pie when Just For Laughs comes to town in November of 2009? (Do the math… it’ll add up to a nice piece of change and a great way for local politicos to have a say in when, where and how the Canadians conduct their business inside the city limits.)

It’s a great week for greedy, busybody lawmakers and their pals– as the FCC prepares to approve the merger between XM and Sirius, the Congressional Black Caucus is pulling out all the stops, trying to get a piece of the post-merger pie. They’re not happy with the 24 channel set-aside for “minorities and women.” They want more channels set aside for what one businessman (who stands to make a lot of money) calls “independent new entrants.” They want five times that number of stations!

Background: The Wall Street Journal’s fascinating breakdown of how the FCC’s members may vote and why. Engadget.com has run the DOJ’s Antitrust Department’s decision to drop their investigation. And an unblinking analysis of the political dealings in the background, particularly focused on Chester Davenport of Georgetown Partners.

Thanks to FOS Sharilyn Johnson for spotting the Chicago Improv discussion!

A large, American-based news syndicator is reporting that Joan Rivers was asked to leave a live British television show during a commercial break. She used foul language (two words, we hear) while guest hosting what might possibly be the U.K. version of The View. Rivers assumed the censors would bleep her. She was wrong.

Which large, American-based syndicator? Uh… we’re afraid to tell you. They might come after us. Okay… you broke us… it’s Associated Press. We’re terrified because AP has decided that websites can’t excerpt AP articles without paying $2.50 per word. That’s right. $2.50 per word. Travis Hudson, writing in PC World said:

The AP’s decision to impose blog-use guidelines is shocking. It’s one thing to go after blogs that copy the entire length of an AP story without any linking or recognition, but it’s another to go after personal blogs that aren’t looking to profit from using AP content, or the professional news outlet blogs that generally provide proper acknowledgment and accompanying links. This doesn’t even consider social-news Web sites like Digg that commonly use excerpts from stories. Depending on how rigorous the AP guidelines are, this decision by the AP may stifle the current Web 2.0 trends of cross-linking and content-distribution, which is what makes blogs so great.

This, coupled with the ominous decisions by certain internet providers in test markets in Texas to start charging by the gig for downloads, could significantly alter the development of the WWW.

We’re convinced that the tiered service business model will doom all but a few sites that depend on video. One story on the subject said that watching one hour of video on Hulu.com would add up to a half a gig. That puts things in perspective. A 5-GB, 20 GB or 40 GB package would be gobbled up in no time. Extra charges kick in after the limit is reached.

An Associated Press article on an Allegheny County nitwit legislator who pushed a drink tax to subsidize public transportation in the Greater Pittsburgh area.

Even comedians have gotten into the act, complaining that rising drink tabs meant fewer people coming to see them perform and pouring wine and liquor into a river in a mock restaging of the Boston Tea Party.

The anti-business tax is meeting with some hard feelings and some push-back from the citizens and bar owners.

A petition drive is about to get under way to try to repeal the 10 percent levy. Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation plans to begin collecting signatures Tuesday to put the issue to a referendum in November.[…]

Allegheny County will respond to the new Whiskey Rebellion with its own referendum, asking voters to pick between a property tax increase or the drink tax to maintain a transit subsidy required by law.

Kevin Martin, head of the FCC, has recommended that the commission vote to approve Sirius’ buyout of XM if each party agrees to turn over 12 stations apiece to “noncommercial programmers and for those who have ‘not been traditionally represented’ in radio.” The satellite radio companies have also agreed to produce radios that work with both systems and an open radio standard that will supposedly enable more manufacturers to offer more satellite-capable radios to consumers.

The provision on noncommercial and minority programming along with several others– including a three-year price freeze for customers– persuaded Martin to support Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.’s buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. The deal would affect millions of subscribers who pay to hear music, news, sports and talk programming, largely free from advertising, in homes and vehicles.

Will we have a 24-hour Whaling Songs station? Songs for Plants, perhaps?

From BlogCritics.org, comes this passage, from a belated review of the Best of Comic Relief DVD boxed set:

So why did I volunteer to review a collection of stand-up comedy? Hope springs eternal; I naively thought I’d find a “best of” collection to be funny.

I’m afraid I didn’t. While I found co-host Robin Williams’ irrepressible improv hilarious at times…

Why indeed would someone like this volunteer to review this collection? As demonstrated by her fondness for Robin Williams’ “improv,” she knows nothing about standup comedy.

And, in the paragraph just prior to the above graf:

I confess, I am not much for watching stand-up comedy on television. When I see comics on Comedy Central, for instance, I rarely think they’re very funny. The people in the audience always seem to be having a much better time than I am. I believe there are two explanations for this. One, laughter is contagious, so the jokes seem funnier when you are watching a show live and the people around you are laughing. Two, alcohol. Things are so much funnier when you’ve have had a few.

To review: A roomful of people enjoying standup comedy isn’t because of an appreciation for the skill and talent of the comedians. No, it’s a psycho-social reflex, a magical herd mentality that takes over and causes them to laugh in spite of themselves. Oh, that and alcohol.

It’s not a finely honed act, not a carefully calibrated mixture of wordplay and sensibilities and physicality and concepts carefully skewed and reconstituted that provokes the sweet reaction that is laughter. It’s an accidental, lizard-brain response from a roomful of lushes.

It is fascinating that we so often witness a person who doesn’t get standup (sometimes admittedly so) who thinks that the problem lies not in them, but in everyone else. And further, they often try to make it seem as though the folks who actually get standup are the ones with the problem!

Fascinating.

We are going to go with this theory: The author simply lacks the capacity to enjoy and appreciate standup comedy. There are such people. Odd, isn’t it, that she didn’t at least for a moment entertain this third possiblity. Perhaps doing so would require a sense of humor about herself.

Road Atlas Shrugged, the Female Half’s personal blog (described as “Profound analysis mixed with sheer idiocy”) is 200 posts old today! (It is quite a milestone, considering that the vast majority of blogs have wind whistling through them, abandoned by their authors months or even years ago.)

Since her first posting on November1 16, TFHOTS has established her blog as a frequently hysterical, sometimes thoughtful, always entertaining oasis providing some of the keenest commentary on pop culture, politics and insignificata to be found on the WWW. Hop to it, bookmark it and check back frequently!

It’s Minneapolis and Nashville.

They take over the Acme Comedy Co.

Did they just diss Dwight Slade? Did they show him mugging in a series of quick cuts and then show the judges/scouts yawning and looking uncomfortable? Or was it someone who looked like Slade?

* * * * *

(Why put the juggler on if all you’re going to do is roll your eyes? Oops! There we go again! Asking dumb questions!)

* * * * *

Did Doug Mellard just pronounce his name (his own name!) in two different ways in the space of twenty seconds? (First: mell-ARD, second: MELL-urd). We really should throw a tape into the VCR. (Sorry, folks, we don’t have Tivo.)

There seems to be an affinity among the scouts/judges this season for loooooong setups and weak (or relatively weak) payoffs. We suppose it’s that a short, choppy delivery (otherwise known as setup/punchline) is out of vogue. It’s all part of the trend to “disguise” the joke, to behave in a non-comic mode.

* * * * *

The Minneapolis scouts seem to be unaware that, during the auditions, the comics are peforming in a decidely un-showlike circumstance. Oh, sure, we’ve done our set for two people before– as a formality, to show the producers of a television show what we’re going to do on the taping, maybe. But, by that time, we already had the gig. But the judges are saying things like, “You kinda rushed your set!” Duh! Pros can do the set like the house is packed. But anyone short of that is going to rush, is going to jam up the timing, direct the jokes to the floor. It’s kinda piling on to mention that the comic isn’t doing his/her set all that well in such a crazy setting.

* * * * *

Last Comic Driving: Eddie Pence. “The tallest person in his family.” We’re back to tall comedy! (We recall comedy clubs excitedly promoting upcomin appearances by Pam Stone breathlessly telling audiences that “she’s really tall! So buy your tickets now!” (We actually heard one club owner say, “Last time she was here, she hit her head on the ceiling and it was hil-LAR-ious!”) Puzzling, to say the least. Tall Comedy competed briefly with Hair Comedy. Comics with funny haircuts were all the rage!)

* * * * *

The Last Comic Driving is the bravest of any comedian on any given episode– he’s getting into a car (ostensibly) piloted by a British driver! (Brits in America are driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road! The Male Half drove a car around Ireland for ten days– on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road– with a stick shift!)

* * * * *

Four weeks into the season and we’re already stunned at the amount of negative feelings we’re encountering via email and comments concerning our Last Comic Standing analysis. We’ve had a shitty week, so we’re not in the mood.

So, we’ll give our most vocal critics the review they want to hear.

We’re aboslutely awed by the caliber of acts that are making it onto the showcases this year! It’s astounding how competent, how assured and how ready they all are to headline! And the freak acts– the ones with the googly-eyed glasses and the big, fuzzy beards and the hats with funny sayings– just got us tearing up with laughter. We think that comedy club owners should seriously consider just bringing in some of those kooky extroverts as headliners! It’s what America loves, after all! It is obvious to us that these reality show producers know far more about standup than anyone who’s been in this business for two decades or so. This show is one big, fat boon to standup comedy. This show is the best thing to happen to standup!

There. Now leave us alone. At least for a week.

* * * * *

According to our Minneapolis recap, back on February 20, Pete Lee, Dan Cummins and John Evans got red envelopes. And, according to this evening’s episode, nobody got boned. All three were depicted as moving onto the big enchilada.

* * * * *

Zanies in Nashville was the site of the auditions for the second part of tonight’s episode. When we recapped the Nashville show on March 4, we said that Heath Hyche, Erin Jackson, Taylor Mason, Mary Mack and Dale Jones got the crimson packet.

* * * * *

That was former local musical comedian Pat Godwin (formerly of the Morning Zoo crew on Philadelphia’s WMMR and current regular on Bob & Tom), who did the Bono impression and ventriloquist and South Jersey resident Taylor Mason (he lives about five minutes from SHECKYmagazine HQ) who appeared with the ventriloquist dummy.

* * * * *

Good for Ratzenberger and Wendt– they acknowledged that the audition situation was unnatural and not optimum.

* * * * *

Killer Beaz acuitted himself nicely at the evening show, even wedging in his trademark “Save up!” We admire Beaz for informing Wendt and Ratzenberger that he’d been at this thing for 26 years. Good for him for not lying and saying he’s only been doing it for seven!

* * * * *

They’re showing a lot more standup in tonight’s episode! Fewer freaks and the taped packages are mercifully few and mercifully brief. Next week’s episode will show the secret Miami audition– the one where they flew a bunch of comics in from London and didn’t open it up to the local Miami/So. Florida comics. And then they’re going to show the beginning of the Vegas leg of the competition.

* * * * *

“If you’re not nervous, you shouldn’t be doing this,” says Drew Thomas. Did he mean standup? Or Last Comic Standing? We’re not sure we agree if it’s the former. We’re not sure if we agree if it’s the latter, either. Some folks are nervous, some folks aren’t. Most folks, we would venture, lose that after a year or two or three. We suppose Thomas didn’t mean it… perhaps he was nervous.

* * * * *

On the advantages of appearing on Last Comic Standing, Heath Hyche says, “Instead of selling 38 tickets on a Thursday night, I’ll sell 380!” Heath! As a friend, we must tell you that you should have said, “Instead of selling 200 tickets on a Thursday night, I’ll sell 2000!” (If you tell a network TV audience that you only sell 38 tickets on a Thursday night, the phone will stop ringing!)

* * * * *

Taylor Mason was not shown to have received a red envelope at the conclusion of the Nashville evening showcase. He’s one of the unlucky 16 who were enveloped then disinvited to Vegas. (See the posting, “Red Envelope Madness” below.)

One year ago, we posted about the demise of the Comix Cafe in Buffalo, NY. The Buffalo Cafe crowds were tremendous and the club was nearly always packed. We’re not clear on why it went under, but we’re fairly certain it had nothing to do with business.

Now we have learned that the Comix Cafe in Rochester (no relation to the other Cafe) has also closed its doors, holding its last show– their open mike night– last night. We were told that this collapse was due to ineptitude on the part of the club’s proprietors, although that is subject to verification. Sounds plausible, though, as this club, like the similarly-named venue in Buffalo, was unable to stay in business despite healthy attendance.

Of course, we’re well aware that there’s far more to profitability than a headcount. But a club owner has to be some kind of incompetent to go under while packing the joint (or… there were other factors involved that we’re not aware of). We’ll probably never hear the full story.

Whatever the case, it seems to us (who, we hasten to point out, are not graduates of the Wharton School of Business) that a savvy, comedy-loving entrepreneur could make a profitable go of it by establishing clubs in one or both of these upstate NY locales. The populations of both cities are disproportionately loaded with knowledgeable and enthusiastic comedy fans (and have been for over two decades) and there is now a void to be filled.

On a side note: Something bugged us about the Comix Cafe site (see link above). Compare it to this site, for a comedy club on the other side of the continent. Hmmm… There seems to be a similarity in their graphics. Has Rochester been bought out by the Seattle folks? Or is it merely a case of stolen graphics? (We wouldn’t be surprised by the latter, as the Rochester management seems to be somewhat lacking in scruples– when we named the Buffalo Comix Cafe as one of the top ten clubs in the country in a USA Today article, the Rochester people appropriated the quote and, capitalizing on readers’ confusion, they claimed their establishment as “one of the country’s ten best, according to USA Today!” Totally sleazoidal!)

Unconfirmed rumors that the following finalists have already been eliminated.

Papa CJ
Esther Ku
Paul Foot
God’s Pottery

Don’t forget to watch Thursday, June 12 at 8:30 PM EDT. Our update, written as we’re watching, will go up shortly after the show’s conclusion at 9:30 PM EDT.

Terry Morrow (pictured at left), a writer for Scripps Howard News Service, is at it again. It’s an annual thing. Two years ago last month, we trashed his critique of Last Comic Standing. Then we published a report (“Pouty TV critic assails plucky standup editors,”) that detailed how he befriended us on MySpace just so he could post nasty comments (on OUR MySpace profile!).

Then last week, we deconstructed his article based on his interview with Bill Bellamy (“Last Comic Standing: Behind the scenes?”). We took issue with a couple things he said and we expressed our puzzlement with some of Bellamy’s statements as well. We didn’t think it was anything particularly out of line.

Apparently Morrow took offense. This time, he sent a message to our MySpace:

What’s your problem, you lameass fucks?

We tried replying, but got the “You must be a friend of Terry Morrow to send a message.” message.

So. Here’s our reply:

Apparently, you are!

That should settle it.

And if it doesn’t, he should know he’s more than welcome to make comments on the magazine if he wants to defend his article. Just so long as he keeps it civil.

Agence France Presse is reportng that Chris Rock, “was the victim of a practical joke while on tour in South Africa, after being pranked with accusations he had sex with a British minor.”

Ha ha! That’s a good one! We bet Rock is still laughing!

“This one went far, it must have been organised quite carefully,” said Tlali, who said when prosecutors discovered the following day it was a prank there were mixed reactions with some slamming it as a waste of time, while others saw the funny side.

It was not known which television show was behind the prank.

For a brief period, Rock thought “he was about to be arrested for sexually assaulting a minor in Britain,” in a foreign country, halfway around the world. It’s “practical jokes” like this one that give practical jokes a bad name. And for every 10 people who heard that Chris Rock was fooled into believing that he was about to be arrested for assaulting a minor, there’ll be 1.5 people who heard that Chris Rock assaulted a minor. (We smell lawsuit!)

Linda Holmes has written an article on MSNBC.com asking “Will Jack Black survive ‘Kung Fu Panda?'” The article hinges on this premise:

When comic actors and stand-up comedians with big personalities venture into the realm of heading up a children’s animated movie, the results can quickly drain away whatever goodwill they have earned with adults, even as children are transformed into fans.

Standup comedians who are cited as having done disfavor to their careers are Mike Meyers, Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld and Robin Williams.

If you’re puzzled after reading that list (which, by the way, is also a list of some of the wealthiest and– still– most powerful people in Hollywood), you’re not alone.

The reasons are a hodgepodge of complaints masquerading as self-evident truths (“Almost no one holds up well doing funny voices for an hour and a half.”) and vague, tired rants against marketing, merchandising and hype.

Why should anyone “hate” animated voices because of product tie-ins? Someone needs to cut down on the caffiene. “If we do not become adequately exhausted by an animated character (and, by implication, the voice associated with it), we will certainly get sick of the part where every McDonald’s cup has his picture on it for a period of 10 agonizing weeks,” says Cranky Ol’ Grandma Holmes. We can’t recall the last time we were in any way exhausted or sick because of what appeared on our McDonald’s cup. It must be a frightening and grim world for Holmes.

It’s not all doom and gloom. She cites Patton Oswalt and Steve Carell as the examples of comedians/comic actors who avoided the fate of the poor, poor bastards cited above.

We could cite a few more– Ellen Degeneres (Finding Nemo), Larry The Cable Guy (Cars), Ray Romano (Ice Age, Ice Age2: The Meltdown), Billy Crystal (Monsters, Inc.)– who, we’re pretty sure, won’t wear out their welcome with adults for having done funny voices for 75 minutes. But that would blast to smithereens Holmes’ thesis.

We suppose the piece may have been intended to be funny. Maybe.

There is one unintended bit of humor. The video clip box that accompanies the article is captioned, “Actor Jack Black dishes on his role in the animated film ‘Kung Fu Panda’ and on his spilling the news that Angelina Jolie is expecting twins.” Click on it and we’re treated to Black being interviewed by Meredith Viera on NBC’s Today. If there’s anything that will kill anyone’s taste for a nutty, freewheelin’ iconoclast like Jack “Oh, My God, He’s So Crazy!” Black, might it be seeing him at 6 in the morning “dishing” to Meredith Viera and dropping names and talking casually about Cannes?

They cast superstars to voice the characters in animated films because it works when it comes time to promote the project– publicists have an easier time booking Jack Black than Dan LaFontaine or a mid-level actor or comedian who merely happens to have a facility for doing funny voices.

Here’s the cast from the 1962 animated feature “Gay Purr-ee”:

Judy Garland
Robert Goulet
Red Buttons
Paul Frees
Hermione Gingold
Morey Amsterdam
Mel Blanc
Joan Gardner
Julie Bennett
June Foray

At least three of the above were known primarily for their cartoon work. (Foray was the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Frees was a heavy hitter for Disney and Jay Ward. Blanc was BLANC! Bennett was an actress, but she also did old ladies for Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. Gardner voiced cartoon characters for TV and features.)

Buttons and Amsterdam were comedians. Comedians are, we would assume, ideal for voiceover work, since they know how to sell comedy. They know where the punchline is and they know how to punch it.

Jack Black will survive “Kung Fu Panda” quite nicely.

Finally, there’s this, from Dose.ca:

Comedians tend to be the sort of people who are said to have “a lot of personality” as in: their face looks like a bucket of crushed bums. As a result, they actually do wind up with lots of personality, compensating for looks with laughs. Maybe that’s why they get a ton of voice work in cartoons, we’d rather hear than see them. Given the gimmicky, ADD-approved pop culture vomit that cartoons tend to be these days, maybe it’s not the best place for comedic genius. On the heels of the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss classic Horton Hears a Who starring Jim Carrey and Steve Carell, we take a look at comedians turned cartoon characters and see which incarnation of them we like best.

Our thoughts exactly! Hit the link for more comedians– Tim Allen in “Toy Story,” Wanda Sykes in “Over The Hedge,” Sascha Baron Cohen in “Madagascar” and more.

Houston auditioner Chris Voth, got what might be called a “provisional” red envelope when he auditioned this past February. He talks about his experience in a lengthy, must-read posting on his website’s blog.

Over the next several weeks, I had numerous conversations via email with producers from the show as details were being dispersed about the semi-finals in Las Vegas. We had to sign a lot of waivers and confidentiality agreements and confirm that we could block off a couple weeks in case we made it into the house, etc.

Less than a week before the semi’s, I got a call from a producer saying a decision was made and I was now being uninvited to the next round. They had overpicked comedians and now were calling some to tell them they were no longer on the show. In fact, they originally picked 46 comics (from all the audition cities), but only 30 were moving on.

Voth and 15 others were cat toys for the LCS producers. It seems a crappy thing to do to a comedian (a working comedian, anyway) to ask him/her to “block off a couple weeks” of the calendar so that dithering producers at the helm of a wildly profitable network reality show can build The Perfect Season.

Are we being unreasonable here? Might they not consider the several weeks between the audition and the eventual kiss-off a period of speculation, and pay the comedians as they would pay someone who is signed to a development retainer? We don’t think that’s too far off base. If you’re going to overstock the talent on your show by more than 50 per cent and ask the “extra talent” to put their livelihood on hold, should you not be obligated to compensate said talent?

What’s that you say? The chance to be on network television is golden– it is a small sacrifice to pay should those idle weeks eventually lead to a shot on NBC. Spoken like a true network executive.

Sure, they signed the release. They knew what they were getting into. We suppose that what we’re saying, now that we know how they overbooked the show, is that they have some sort of obligation to obviate such a gut-wrenching decision on the part of the talent.

Shashi Batia (we won’t waste the bold code on her name) was the audition from Hell or whatever they’ve been calling it. It wasn’t worth the wait.

* * * * *

Francois Fly? We’ll repeat it, the Mel Silverback thang ain’t gonna happen again!

* * * * *

“The San Francisco scene is a mixed bag,” says Stewart French… or French Stewart. He said it with a raised eyebrow (we could hear it). NO. No, it is not. Not in the way he implied. It only appears that way because the producers of the show scoured the earth for nitwits and put them up in front of you while the cameras rolled.

It’s not a mixed bag that has a disproportionate concentration of goofballs and weirdos populating the comedy clubs. Nor is it the sinkhole of talent that this show is leading viewers to believe. (They did the same thing to Los Angeles last week and they’re doing it this week to S.F.)

* * * * *

“From the pretenders to the contenders,” says the voiceover, as we make the transition from the psychos to the alleged pros. The first “contenders” are the Meehan Brothers. It was 1977 high school variety show funny. The scouts nailed it when they said the brothers were reminsicent of street performers. Precisely. Not that there’s anything wrong with street performers– A. Whitney Brown started out as one– But we don’t see a whole lot of the Comedy Eye of the Tiger among street performers by and large. (It’s the nature of the beast– the “edgy” or “caustic” street performer is swiftly hurried off the corner by the police after several complaints are lodged.)

* * * * *

We recall doing “yuppie” jokes back in 1984 or so. We also recall stopping with the “yuppie” jokes about 1985 or so. Here we are, 23 years later and we have Sky and Nancy Collins. It wasn’t funny in 1986 and it’s not all that startling or humorous now.

* * * * *

Stewart French and Josh Gomez might be the most entertaining of the scout teams so far.

* * * * *

They haven’t videotaped enough that they have to show Jeff Dye doing the Costco joke TWICE?!?!

* * * * *

ALL RIGHT! Sheyla Almeida is shown yet again! More hits for SHECKYMagazine.com! (You wouldn’t believe the number of times this is showing up in our stats)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=last+comic+standing+big+tits

She was #9 in the Worst Audition Countdown.

* * * * *

(Before we forget: We saw FOS Paul Ogata in the quick-cut montage at the beginning of tonight’s broadcast.)

* * * * *

Jonathan Thymius made quite an impact– both in the afternoon and in the evening’s showcase. He’s the brains behind HollywoodComediansRadio.com, a podcast that interviews comedians.

* * * * *

Nearly halfway through the show, we are consumed by the (irrational?) fear that viewers are of the opinion that this– borderline psychotics, fake boxers, strippers with no discernible talent other than to shake “it” and a man who punches himself, etc.– is what passes for entertainment at your local comedy club. And that they’ll dismiss the idea of going to a comedy club altogether. Or they’ll be sorely disappointed when the acts onstage don’t punch themselves or fake weeping or threaten folks in the room and make them feel uncomfortable. Which is worse?

* * * * *

We reported on March 1 that the following made it through:

showcase:
Mike E. Winfield
Andy Haynes
Iliza Shlesinger
Jeff Dye
Drennon Davis
Whitney Cummings
Meehan Brothers

It looks like the Red Envelope was snatched back from Andy Haynes and Whitney Cummings.

* * * * *

On to Toronto!

And we can’t look at Dave Foley without thinking about the time that The Female Half and Foley got into a screaming match with the Kid in the Hall at a bar in Hollywood called the Coach and Four. (It’s a long story, but it ended just about at last call with a handful or two of straggling patrons looking on and the ceiling lights blinking and the music cutting off just as Foley stands and bellows how many “American dawlers” he paid in taxes the year before.)

* * * * *

We can’t escape the idea that the folks in the Funny Booth look like they’re on the toilet (as so many of the “contestants” have alluded to). The Female Half points out that most comics are probably more funny when actually on the toilet. (Although, we have no way of knowing, thank the good lord.) The Funny Booth is rare among innovations– it is neither innovative nor entertaining. It invariably results in squirming, looking away from the screen, bathroom breaks and trips to the refrigerator when you’re not even hungry.

* * * * *

Why do all the obvious amateurs think that nakedness is their ticket to the big time?
On what planet, in what subculture, in what alternate universe is the exposure of more flesh than just the face and arms automatically an invitation to hilarity? Why are we seeing so many paunchy men wearing speedos? Why are so many contestants shirtless? And why are they all males? (There are notable exceptions– sometimes nekkid does lead to laughter. Witness our wildly popular short film, “Starting Over” here. We like to think that the nakedity is secondary to the jocularity.)

* * * * *

How ill-suited is Fearne Cotton for this job? When one of the contestants told her that he had just written one of his jokes five minutes before he performed it, she… didn’t ask him which one! We here at home were stunned! Which one?!?! Which one?!?

* * * * *

Keep this in mind when watching the show:

TV Guide: What’s the best line you’ve heard so far?

Bellamy: I like, “What do you call a dog with no legs? It doesn’t matter– he ain’t coming!” [Laughs] I was dying!

It was Derek Forgie who told it. But he didn’t tell seriously– he told it in the character of a Catskills/burlesque comic. (We must ask, Exactly where has Bellamy been all his life? Raised in Madagascar, perhaps? Although, we suspect that young Madagascarians had a variation on the joke involving lemurs with no legs. So Bellamy has absolutely no excuse.)

* * * * *

We reported back on February 16 that Sean Cullen, Winston Spear, The Williamson Playboys and Brian Lazanik were given red envelopes.

Add Brian Lazanik and The Williamson Playboys to the “burned” list!

* * * * *

We’re pleased to hear that Richard Kind stressed on at least two occasions, via voiceover, that he was amazed at just how difficult standup comedy is. The man seems to have tremendous respect for us standup comics. We wonder if Collette Hawley had anything to do with that?

Can the stomach take two hours?

Someone who calls himself “Joe Reality,” who writes for RealityTVMagazine.com, says:

In a special two-hour episode of Last Comic Standing, the top ten worst and craziest auditions of this season will be counted down. In addition, Dave Foley, Richard Kind, Josh Gomez and French Stewart will be featured as celebrity talent scouts. Bill Bellamy serves as host of the series.

Josh Gomez and French Stewart will travel to San Francisco, where they will encounter a wild comedy trio of brothers. Gomez and Stewart will also have a run-in with an unfunny female comic, who fights back.

No source cited, we figure it’s from an NBC press release.

Stealing a page from American Idol‘s playbook, and lacking the hysterical fireworks of any appearance this year from Buck Star (the sarcasm light is on and flashing), the producers will take a few minutes (probably an hour) and “countdown” the ten worst and craziest auditions.

Exactly how does this square with the “nice angle” that is being touted by host Bellamy in countless wire stories over the past week? Get ready for rimshots, cricket sounds and worse, as NBC’s ratings bummer (we hear it ranked 58th overall last week) demeans all the costumed, deluded and desperate people they lured to the auditions.

Perhaps even a few competent and professional comedians will be edited so that they can be included among the worst and craziest.

Kris Knight is circulating the following, via MySpace bulletin:

Dear Friends, I am reluctant to pass on this grave news just given to me by Pat Reale, friend, manager, and companion of Frank D’Amico that Frank passed away at his home in California yesterday afternoon. He had recently had some complications due to diabetes but was making a remarkable recovery and all who knew him were pleased at his progress and optimism. But, that was the Frank we all knew and loved. He was resting and fell into his final dream of peace from which he did not wake, but instead began another journey. Frank was 52 years old. There are plans right now to bring him back to the East Coast to be buried here. It is requested by Pat Reale not to contact him at this time as he is understandably inundated.

D’amico’s bio is here.

Just what in the name of Red Skelton is going on here? A Scripps-Howard News Service piece by Terry Morrow, entitled “Cleaning up their acts,” quotes heavily from LCS host Bill Bellamy and Morrow spouts such nonsense as:

In recent years, stand-up comedians worked “blue” or “raw” for quick laughs– rough language, crude stories and a no-holds-barred approach. The style was shocking but effective. It got customers to comedy clubs– until many comics started doing it.

Then “raw” lost its zing.

1. In recent years?! Tell that to Redd Foxx, Pearl Williams, George Carlin, Andrew Dice Clay, etc. It’s been one of many approaches for decades.

2. Quick laughs? Working blue without well-written, well-delivered material is not a route to laughs, quick or otherwise. Working dirty (without material and skill) has never been a route to quick anything, except maybe quick ejection from an open mike.

We’ll say it again: Standup comedy is difficult when you work dirty; standup comedy is difficult when you work clean. Standup comedy is difficult.

3. It got customers to comedy clubs? News to us. Good comedians get customers to comedy clubs, raw or otherwise. Famous, well-promoted comedians get customers to comedy clubs. Provocative comedians, comedians on sitcoms, comedians who have a hot YouTube clip, comedians who appear on syndicated radio shows– get customers to comedy clubs. Comedy club patrons are not so unsophisticated that they merely show up at the club because they want to hear “fuck.” Does it happen? Sure. Is it an overriding trend? Certainly not.

Is one of the attractions/thrills of seeing standup live (in a club, a theater, an arena) that you might see/hear something that you can’t hear on Comedy Central? To be sure. But Morrow’s hypothesis is hinky.

4. Raw has lost its zing? It may well be that, with YouTube and uncensored satellite radio snippets and pay per view and Howard Stern, the case could be made that standup fans don’t have to go to their local club to see the nastiest of the nasty. But the numbers represented by the above audiences are so small as to be negligible. Raw, done competently, witnessed live will always have zing.

Bellamy and NBC are fixated on clean comedy. Odd, to say the least.

Bellamy, who does dozens of club dates a year, says he sees the “clean” trend giving way to more honest material.

Say what? Aren’t we always told that raw comedy leads to honesty? And that clean comedy is unnecessarily sterile and inherently dishonest? What manner of propaganda is this?

Bellamy goes further:

Working cleaner material opens stand-up shows to larger audiences, even families, he says. Many comics felt the social– and sometimes FCC– pressure of going with cleaner jokes after the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake Super Bowl halftime debacle in 2004.

“It was like a throwback to conservatism,” Bellamy says.

On what planet? We felt no such thing. This is myth, pure and simple. Nor did Bono yelling “fucking brilliant” on an awards show the year before lead to any pressure– “The FCC refused to fine NBC because the network did not receive advance notice of the consequences of broadcasting such profanity and the profanity in question was not used in its literal sexual meaning.” (Wikipedia)

With regard to that imagined pressure, Morrow says Bellamy, “doesn’t see that as a bad thing.”

“Clean is way better,” Bellamy says. “It draws in more people. More people can watch you.”

Perhaps in 1988. But, with the explosion of satellite radio, YouTube, downloads, DVD’s, PPV and other modes of communication and distribution (and with the explosion of standup into theaters, arenas, alt venues and elsewhere), it ain’t necessarily so that “more people can watch you” if you’re clean.

Of course, NBC has standards. And, it seems, LCS is telling the media that those standards will be enforced on this season’s show:

Last Comic Standing is even working the nicer angle. In earlier seasons, the show relished showing comedians working against each other, with some “roasts” of contestants turning ugly and personal.

“The whole core of this show is to give people opportunities,” Bellamy says. “That’s the ‘feel good’ of it.”

We’ll see.

Having met Bellamy, we can attest that he just might be one of the nicest, most genuine people in the business. The feel-good policy might be trickling down from him.

In 2006, we posted about Morrow here, when he said some less than nice things about standup comedy (“We all know that most standup is not very funny”) and about Last Comic Standing (“It has given airtime to hacks who rely more on their dry delivery than good material…”). Apparently, Morrow (and his syndicator Scripps-Howard) have made nice with the show’s producers… probably part of their “feel-good” approach this season and their “nicer angle.” This season, it’s a love fest!

(A tip of the hat to reader Aaron Ward for pointing us in the direction of this article!)

This Sunday, June 8, at 2 PM, at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, there’ll be a gathering/memorial for Mitch Mullany.

From today’s New York Post, at the top of Michael Starr’s “Starr Report”:

Sad news to report out of LA, where comedian Mitch Mullany has died from a diabetic stroke at the age of 39. Mullany starred in The WB series Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher (1996-98) and he was a good sport back then, agreeing to be interviewed (by me) about how it felt to be on the lowest-rated show on TV (at that time). He took it all in stride.

H/T to Butch Bradley and John Kensil.

A question bandied about long before Tower of Power weighed in on the issue. And, quite honestly, a question we’re tired of. It might be said that there has been far too much emphasis placed on hipness over the last half-century. That there are far too many people who are desperate to appear hip, to have their product deemed hip, to be involved in activities that have been blessed with the label. And that all that caring and jockeying and marketing has caused irreparable harm to the culture, pop and otherwise.

Of course, one caveat has it that anyone who is (or appears to be) desperate to appear hip has already forfeited any claim to the status. So, it takes an awful lot of finessing and a mighty amount of acting as if you just don’t care to eventually attain hipness.

But we don’t heed the warnings. We’ll say it now– Standup comedy has always been hip… at least since the middle of the century or so.

While rooting around on the WWW last week, we came across this odd Wikipedia entry, “List of people in Playboy 1960-1969,” which offers a grid that lists all the cover models, the centerfold models, the objects of the many pictorials and, of most interest to us, the interview subjects.

Now, if you’ll grant us that Hugh Hefner and his publication were, for at least the twenty years from 1960 to 1980, arbiters of hip in North America, it is fascinating to note just how many comedians were featured in the coveted main interview slot over the period of ’62 to ’69.

In one 12-month period, from November of 1968 to October of 1969, there were no fewer than four comedy acts profiled. There, amid the chats with Eldridge Cleaver and Ramsey Clark and Allen Ginsberg and Gore Vidal were Rickles, Mort Sahl, Cosby and Rowan & Martin. And Jackie Gleason, Johnny Carson and Woody Allen also were probed in previous years.

In fact, for the entire first year and change– the first 14 issues– there was no big interview. And who did they quiz in the March 1961 Playboy? Who was the inaugural Big Interview in Playboy? Not a person, but a body of persons, entitled, “Panel on Hip Comics and the New Humor.”

The word “hip” actually appears right there in the title of the panel!

Do we need further proof? No. And, to be honest, standup is still hip (by any definition of the word) and has never ceased being so.

Of course, we don’t care about such things… because caring about such things would make us… unhip.

Cory Kahaney is 0 for 2 on reality TV shows– the LCS alum was the first chef eliminated from the Food Network’s Next Food Network Star (see posting below).

We were wondering why she wasn’t showing up in any of the promos that aired in the runup to tonight’s premiere. She was pre-disappeared!

Food Net star Alton Brown led the hopefuls through their first challenge– stand in front of the camera and, in one sentence, summarize their approach, their cooking philosophy. Kahaney froze. She admits as much in the voiceover. And she goofed up some words.

In the subsequent challenges and in her on-camera appearances, she was neither engaging nor particularly humorous.

This was a puzzlement to the show’s host. At one point she was asked (by Brown or by Flay, we don’t recall), and we paraphrase, “Are you going to be funny?”

At show’s end, Kahaney is bounced. In the post-mortem, Kahaney says she didn’t think that she had to be funny all the time. Which may be true. But, from what we saw (which, we acknowledge, was edited), she wasn’t funny any of the time.

Let’s face it, culinary this-and-that degree notwithstanding, she only found herself on the show– among all the other fancily-degreed cooking experts– because she was a semi-famous standup comic who could also cook. So, the expectation might have been that she work a little bit of humor in here or there. Maybe. Just a little. A teaspoon or two. Perhaps a pinch. It might be that when she failed to live up to the others’ expectations, she made passing onto the next level of competition impossible.

We comics occasionally fall into the trap that has us believing that, since we regularly do one of the hardest things that anyone can do, we can automatically switch hats and do something totally unrelated and do it as well as we do the standup. We get points for gumption. But we gotta know that it will occasionally lead to utter, public, crashing failure. Sometimes the skills don’t translate as well as we might hope. Quite often, there’s a learning curve that is similar to that which we experienced when we originally took up the microphone.

We published earlier that British comic Paul Foot made the Final Twelve. Now, we’re hearing that Foot has been booted. (Is there no end to the puns?)

We also heard that Jim Tavare made it into the top five.

That last bit gave us pause (or is that “paws?”). How could there be a “top five” when the show hasn’t even started whittling down the contestants?

It’s all so confusing.

Christopher Rocchio interviews LCS host Bill Bellamy and new producer David Friedman for an article for RealityTVWorld.com.

David Friedman was tapped to executive produce the show’s sixth installment, and he told reporters he tried to keep the changes minimal but worthwhile.

“To me like the most important thing was not to mess with the format because it’s a great show. It’s been successful for five seasons,” Friedman told reporters. “So I was very sort of aware of like, ‘I don’t want to be the guy that screws the show up.’ But what I wanted to do was I felt the show needed to look a little bit larger and feel a little bit larger, and add some elements that made it a little bit more sort of well-rounded.”

So Friedman said he gave Last Comic Standing a “facelift.”

“It’s little bells and whistles that I tried to bring in and add in production value, and I had some ideas like the talent scouts,” he explained. “And little things here and there, and all along keeping in mind that the – not to screw up the format because the show is a good show.”

The “facelift” Friedman has given the show is more like bad plastic surgery. Prior to being tapped to rescue LCS, he was (perhaps still is?) exec producer of Last Call with Carson Daly.

The previous producers have bigger reality fish to fry.

Were Friedman’s words twisted by Rocchio, or do we have genuine controversy going on here:

Friedman said the talent on the show this year shouldn’t disappoint and hinted that the sixth season might produce Last Comic Standing’s first-ever female winner.

“I think this year we did see a lot of strong women,” he said. “I mean, we really did and I think that’s a great sign for everyone in the comedy business because it has been a difficult sort of thing for women to break through. But I think this year we have a great talent pool.”

We don’t see anything in Friedman’s quote to indicate that this season might produce a female winner. And, since (so far as we know) there are only two females among the top twelve finalists, Friedman’s statement (and Rocchio’s conclusion) makes little sense.

* * *

Bellamy is telling any media outlet who’ll listen that things are better than ever:

What I’ve noticed as the host of the show is that the buzz amongst comedians is that the show is a legitimate show, that it’s fun. That’s you’ll get an opportunity– it’ll increase your value as a comedian. Thus, we get better quality comedians coming out,” Bellamy told reporters during a recent conference call. “I think this season is going to be incredibly good. We just have some really funny people with, you know, just creative, original, veiny– like so unique, you’re like, ‘What is that?'”

Did he say, “veiny?” We’re pretty sure that’s a typo.

Bellamy, when asked about the talent level for Season VI, told TVGuide:

We’ve gotten better because more comics are seeing it. When other comedians see comedians they know are good, it encourages the next season.

Odd. We were thinking the exact opposite. Sure, we see some good, professional comedians on the show (perhaps the same number and level as in past seasons), but often we see them only for a fleeting second, after which the camera cuts to someone on Melrose crossing his eyes or we’re treated to Fearne Cotton doing “the Robot.”

* * *

Perhaps the biggest mistake the show makes (from an aesthetic standpoint– the ratings, though anemic this year, have been enough to make the show a “hit”) is in “casting” the contestants and making them audition in an empty room.

We recall Star Search, the mid-80s version (which was a hit in syndication), that auditioned comics in front of comedy club audiences in venues like The Comic Strip and Dangerfield’s. Many of the comedians who competed on that show– Rosie O’Donnell, Sinbad, Ray Romano, Steve Odekirk, Bill Engvall, Drew Carey, Dave Chappelle, Kevin James, Dana Gould, Brad Garrett, Dennis Miller— went on to have lengthy careers performing or writing or producing or a combination of the three. And, it could be argued, there was a smaller pool from which to draw comedy talent.

We suppose that it’s the tyranny of the reality format that demands the empty-room audition, the “Next!” mentality, wacky camera angles and the reliance upon zany costumes and desperate searches for “pizza tossers” and “hotties.”

* * *

We’re wondering– Where’s all the footage from Bellamy’s series of “Secret Auditions,” conducted in cities throughout the U.S.? There has been no mention of the clandestine auditions so far. This is doubly disappointing since it is our opinion that clips from some of these performances might yield some of the more entertaining minutes of genuine standup-to-audience interaction than anything we’ve seen from NYC, L.A. or Houston. (Triply disappointing since, as was mentioned here in February, The Male Half participated in a secret audition in Atlanta.)

The method used to produce these tryouts more closely matches those of traditional, non-reality shows and the performances took place in an environment that more closely mimics show conditions. (And the venues aren’t stocked with telegenic “hotties” in the front row!) A stage, a set of comics chosen by the venue’s manager(s), an audience and a lone camera in the rear of the room. Not perfect, to be sure, but far less contrived than anything else we’ve seen up until now.

The first segment of tonight’s episode is especially grating. We’ve seen segments on The Weather Channel that had more laughs. It was excruciating and grim… and not in a good way (NBC is fond of promoting their shows by offering a roundup of videos called “Hilarious Awkward Moments.” Apparently, awkward is the new ironic. Ironic, you’ll recall, substituted for funny back in the 90s. We suppose this makes LCS cutting edge. We can’t wait until the wheel turns and humorous is the new funny.)

Speaking of awkward moments, how about Last Comic Driving? The other competing comics are crowded in the rear of the vehicle and– we happened to notice– they didn’t shoot this with lipstick cameras, Taxicab Confessions-style. No! This production has more equipment and booms and cameras and takes than a Michael Bay chase scene. How embarassing is that: You do your bit over and over and over again while the other comics sit in the back with those sick grins pasted on their mugs and Fearne Cotton pretends to drive. It’s The Road Gig From Hell… and it actually takes place on a road!

Our earlier L.A. posting (Jan 30) said, “Making it through to the showcase was Ben Glieb, Ruby Wendell, Thai Rivera, Bob Purkell, Rosie Tran, and Tom Clark.”

Then, the next day, we posted the L.A. Five as Eddie Pepitone, Jackie Kashian, Esaw McGraw, Erin Foley and Ron G.

It helps to know this when watching; it enhances the watching experience.

It is fascinating that Clark, who originally was rumored to have advanced, was, through the magic of editing, lumped in with the Chicken Suit Brigade– the actors, misfits, amateurs, shameless yucksters and various other costumed freakazoids that are somehow deemed to be entertaining by this season’s producers. They did it to him twice!

The Chicken Suit Brigade is a pathetic attempt by the producers to catch Mel Silverback lightning in a bottle. (One problem: Silverback was an act that was crafted over years by a real comedian– Dan Licoppe— and watching a bunch of emotionally fragile people who have donned a suit that resembles an animal or a Cossack or a spaceman doesn’t translate into anything near entertaining.)

Who would have thought that Los Angeles could be made to look like such a sinkhole of talent? It is truly disturbing. Once again there were good comics made to look bad. And there was a disproportionate amount of video spent on some acts that didn’t deserve to be in much more of a dolly shot outside the club.

Jackie Kashian did herself a lot of good. She managed to look like the veteran comedy commando that she is.

It looks like Esau McGraw got a red envelope but he wasn’t depicted as moving on to Vegas. We’ve been warning about that. At least he’s got a nice clip for his audition DVD. (Unfortunately, “As seen on NBC’s Last Comic Standing” will be one of the most diluted credits in comedy clubs over the next few months.)

They gave Los Angeles an entire hour and twenty. Which makes sense. But the time was wasted.

They spent forty minutes in Houston. And they wasted about 8 per cent of that on Sheyla Almeida, this year’s Triana Gamaza. (We only mention her here because we know that folks will be searching for her. Or they’ll be searching for “big tits houston.” Either way, they’ll end up here.) We recall seeing a video package on Almeida about three weeks ago on Fox News. (We assume it was carried on a number of newscasts throughout the land.) Her publicist managed to get her plenty of coverage when she announced that she was going to enlarge her already large breasts even further. That same publicist managed to get her on NBC in prime time.

Welcome Google searchers far and wide!

“I don’t think I’m ready for comedy, because I’m a real actress,” she said at what we hope was the very last 8 seconds of her standup career.

The Houston comics are, as a group, looking better than the Los Angelenos. Was it the editing? Was it the choices made by the producers? Whatever it was, the evening show seemed like it was populated by comics with material and a point of view and confidence.

Andi Smith and Bob Biggerstaff (who both got a lot of face time last season) got the red envelopes.

(Recall what we wrote about Houston, back when we posted this on February 24.)

Everyone seems to have been doing comedy for seven years. Hmmm… We suppose that seven-year figure is just enough time to be experienced, but you could also be under the age of 30, thus making it the perfect number of years when asked the “How long have you been doing this?” question.

Prediction: Everyone in the finals this season gets “Bodden-ed”– the show will be cancelled before the full complement of episodes have been shown. So low will the ratings sink that sponsors and suits will agree to put the show down. We shall see.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we must wait 20 minutes and rewind and watch the videotape of the season finale of Lost.

After a stint in the U.S. Navy during WWII, Korman studied at the Goodman School of Drama at the Chicago Art Institute, then hit NYC. From the Associated Press obit:

“For the next 13 years I tried to get on Broadway, on off-Broadway, under or beside Broadway,” he told a reporter in 1971.

He had no luck and had to support himself as a restaurant cashier. Finally, in desperation, he and a friend formed a nightclub comedy act.

“We were fired our first night in a club, between the first and second shows,” he recalled.

After returning to Chicago, Korman decided to try Hollywood, reasoning that “at least I’d feel warm and comfortable while I failed.”

From the NBC press release:

Thursday from 9:30-11 p.m. ET, the season premiere of “Last Comic Standing” averaged a 2.4/6 in 18-49 and 5.9 million viewers overall. Despite facing head-to-head competition from the season finale of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Last Comic” increased from its first half-hour to its third by 4 percent in adults 18-49, by 11 percent in adults 18-34, by 14 percent in men 18-49 and by 15 percent in men 18-34.

On Friday, May 23 at 8 p.m. ET, an encore telecast of “Most Outrageous Moments” delivered a 1.3/5 in 18-49 and 4.7 million viewers overall. At 8:30 p.m., a second rebroadcast of “Most Outrageous Moments” delivered a 1.5/6 in 18-49 and 5.1 million viewers overall. These back-to-back episodes of “Most Outrageous Moments” matched NBC’s highest 18-49 rating in this hour in five weeks.

Read the rest of the release, detailing NBC’s entire week at FutonCritic.com.

And, in an LAT article entitled “Broadcast networks under siege,” Scott Collins marvels at just how far the networks have fallen. He interprets the above numbers thusly:

The broadcast bosses say they’re all about change now. NBC Universal boss Jeff Zucker spent an hour last week on Charlie Rose’s PBS show repeating the mantra that his network has to think now about developing material that can work on multiple “platforms,” including online. Easier said than done though. NBC’s “American Gladiators” and “Last Comic Standing” belly-flopped in heavily promoted outings recently (“Comic” drew just 5.7 million total viewers opposite the “Grey’s Anatomy” season finale Thursday), and it’s tough to believe those programs– both cheap reality fare, with little to no replay value– will suddenly turn on a magical cash spigot in a different medium.

Ouch!

Recall that five years ago:

The numbers for Last Comic have been solid, if not spectacular, throughout the summer. According to the Nielsen overnights, the Last Comic finale averaged 8.2 million viewers to win its time slot (final figures are due out later Wednesday). For its nine-week summer run, Last Comic averaged about 8.3 million viewers and last week’s penultimate installment ranked 19th among total viewers, with 8.5 million. (Unlike Dat Phan, Nielsen Media Research does not report average laughs per minute.)

The following blog entry appeared on comedian Butch Bradley‘s MySpace profile:

If you haven’t heard the sad news we have lost a dear friend and a great comic! Mitch Mullany has passed away. A sad sad loss for any and all that have ever had the pleasure of knowing him. He was a great friend and a stand-up killer! I watched Mitch put panic on the faces of some of the best comics out. He could make anyone laugh he was and is a comics favorite comic! My thoughts and prayers are with his family!

See you on the Big Stage my friend,

Butch Bradley

We placed a phone call to Mullany’s management, Principato-Young Entertainment in Los Angeles and they confirmed that they still managed Mullany, but when asked if they could confirm his death, the person who answered said that they “couldn’t comment.”

Mullany’s Wikipedia entry:

Mitch Mullany (Born 1968 in Oakland, California) is an Irish American actor and screenwriter. He starred on the WB show The Wayans Bros. as White Mike and also had his own show, Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher. In 1999, he wrote and starred in his own film entitled “The Breaks” as Derrick King. Most recently he hosted an ABC reality series called All American Girl.

If we hear anything definite, we’ll let you know.