Comedy Stray Notes January 17, 2022

• Comedy specials rarely find performers taking real risks.

Baring your soul and sharing vulnerable material is certainly brave but it’s not exactly a high wire tightrope act if the jokes have been rehearsed and fine-tuned for maximum effect. No, true riskiness is improvising an entire special during a show’s check spot.

That’s exactly what James Mattern did.

His frantic album, simply titled “The Check Spot” recently won the Interrobang’s Comedy Album of the Year and for good reason. For 33 minutes, James conducts a raucous Q&A with a wild crowd which is no easy feat. Asking a crowd to participate for that long is a dangerous proposition for a comic of any skill level. They can grow from unruly to restless or worst of all, disinterested.

That sort of happens here. James takes a big swing by forgoing material and asking the crowd to ask him questions for the entirety of “The Check Spot.” They throw “Who was your childhood crush” and “Can you sing Prince for us” his way and he shows off his years of experience by wringing laughs out of every topic pitched to him from all directions.

There are big laughs, applause breaks, he even gets booed. Can’t name another special where a comic full on gets a chorus of boos and wins the crowd back.

It’s ballsy, different, surprisingly personal in places and a great showcase for the skills one picks up after years of hosting club shows. James has seen it all, done it all and found a way to adapt the real NY experience for club acts.

This is the real warts and all comedy experience. This is risk taking.

My only complaint? When James is asked which celebrity he’d fight, he says, “43-year-old Billy Joel.”

Funny, yes. But bro, the Piano Man is my dude and I’d stand up for him any day.

• Speaking of award-winning, I spotted that Eliot Thompson was named the winner of 2021’s New York Comedy Club Stand Up Competition and having caught his 12-minute set that netted him that title, it’s no wonder why. He swaggers onstage, guns blazing with an extended chunk on his anti-vax doctor. Punchlines like “I don’t know if you know anti-vaxxers but they don’t usually keep that to themselves” cut deep and ripple throughout the buzzy crowd. That momentum is maintained for the entirety of the set with pointed observations about modern healthcare and  recently deceased people’s social media accounts. 

Eliot’s clearly been hard at work- these aren’t just good jokes; these are real truths that stick with you.

• Just this week, The Tonight Show had not one, but two New York comics swing by for late night sets. Both Raanan Hershberg and Matthew Broussard completely owned the star-making room. In his five-minute spot, Raanan built to a rousing crescendo telling a hilarious story about what his mother is incredulous about these days while Matt’s even-keeled explanation of how his girlfriend is the breadwinner and his comedy is a little “party trick” laid bare what joke telling really is at the end of the day.

The bookers at Fallon are on fire- they picked two of the best.

• When New York gets cold in January, I go into full hibernation mode. My New Year’s resolution is to go outside every day this year (one of the lamest sentences I’ve ever typed) and while I am batting 1.000 thus far, I’m still spending most of my time cozied up in the apartment. This has allowed for quite a bit of comedy/movie consumption. Here’s what I’ve seen this past week:

“Mentally Al” (2021): Every comedy community has an unsung hero, a comic’s comic that everyone admires for their brazenness, willingness to be different and originality. For some of the biggest names in comedy like Judd Apatow, Sarah Silverman and Kevin Nealon, that guy was a man named Al Lubel.

This documentary about former “Star Search” winner Lubel shines a light on what may have been a lost pocket of comedy history, had this gripping documentary not been produced. In it, we see every facet of the fiercely unique comic’s life- one moment he’s stewing about what could have been had he just woken up before 10 a.m. every day like Seinfeld preached; the next, he’s headlining The Borgata in Atlantic City and dividing the room in two. 

What keeps the doc moving is not only Josh Edelman’s swift direction and retro score but also that Lubel has enough material and stray, raw observations about his life and career that nearly every moment of the film is compelling. 

The line “I look homeless because I give all my money to rent- if I was homeless, I wouldn’t look homeless” is an excellent microcosm of his act and what to expect from Al; he starts with a stock premise and then twists a new punchline out of the setup in a way that feels like you’re hearing a joke for the first time.

My favorite moment of all though (and there are many great moments I’m omitting for brevity here) was when we see Lubel “owning” a heckler. Rather than move on and anoint Lubel as the victor, Edelman talks to him backstage about what transpired giving Al room to dwell. By locking into his guilt, we see a side of comics that never get shown in documentaries- the shame. 

There’s so many other great bits (a cut from Al performing on The Tonight Show to the showroom at Flappers is worthy of honorable mention) that it’s more than worth seeking this prickly, very funny film out IF YOU LOVE COMEDY ODDBALLS (Streaming on YouTube for $3.99). 

*I started this weekly newsletter three years ago after I was inspired to write about a similar documentary “Hysterical.” That flick puts NY legends Alan Shain and Gawee front and center. It’s nice that now there’s a fantastic Los Angeles companion piece; these two films back to back would make for an excellent double feature.

**Special thanks to Liz Glazer for the stellar recommendation here; this really is one of the best comedy documentaries I’ve ever seen.

“The Green Knight” (2021): When your wife is a major Dev Patel fan, you end up seeing every movie the “Slumdog Millionaire” star is in. The most recent entry, released last year, is a bang up, off-kilter Arthurian hero’s journey that’s also kind of a Christmas movie. It begins with what Anna Paone assured me was the fairly well-known story of Gawain (Patel) who was tasked by King Arthur to slay the menacing, visiting Marvel-esque Green Knight. Only it comes with a catch- one year later, the Green Knight gets to return the favor and land a blow.

I would have preferred a movie about the existential dread Patel’s Gawain dealt with all year but his trek to find the Green Knight proved to be engaging in its own right; kind of like a mid-budget A24 game of Dungeons and Dragons with witches, thieves, beheadings and all.

This tale, passed down for centuries, finds new life in the film with flourishes like a puppet show re-enacting the battle for children and a frame that’s so obscene after a sex scene I had to do a double take to make sure what I really just saw had happened. It’s gross, unexpected and probably the only thing I’ll remember about this movie years from now.

Well, other than the unexpected ending that turns its back on your typical hero’s journey finale. I most likely wouldn’t have seen this movie if Dev Patel wasn’t in it but I’M GLAD HE WAS (Streaming on Amazon Prime for $4.99).

*I have no idea why the Green Knight was so evil. I mean, yeah, he’s a villain but no idea what he gets out of this strange arranged battle?

**Anna caught that there was a post-credits sequence. Should you see this movie, make sure you don’t turn it off right as soon as you see the Unit Production Manager’s name flash onscreen. There’s a goodie waiting for you 90ish seconds later.

SNL with Ariana Debose: I wasn’t sure if and when SNL was coming back a week or so ago. They took their sweet, sweet time with an announcement and bringing in Ariana Debose was a welcome if not unusual surprise. Debose, who ruled in both “West Side Story” and “Schmigadoon” this past year, is fairly low-profile when it comes to hosts.

Was her booking a result of Omicron-related fear from bigger names or did the show want to rally around a potential Oscar nominee? 

We’ll never know. 

Overall, the episode was good. I know that’s not much of a descriptor but this was one of those shows where nothing was truly spectacular nor did a clunker stink up the joint. Lots of singles and doubles is what I’m trying to say with a few home runs and triples sprinkled in. No strike outs though.

It’s been over a month since the last one but here’s my official baseball style rankings of all sketches on the air.

Home runs:

Eric Adams Press Conference: Chris Redd had what seemed like his biggest night at the show yet. Stepping in as the new Mayor-elect, he captured Adams’ voice: the emphasis on swag (he’s bringing us out of “New York’s swagless existence”), the bungling of sensitive topics (RE: unskilled workers, he says, “if you were better at life, you would have a desk”), the roasting of reporters and the over-reliance on his police experience (“I was a cop for over 222 years”). This was a true comic creation. Surprised that it made it to air though considering SNL usually avoids material that is “local.”

Weekend Update: At this point, Jost and Che are major celebrities based on crowd reaction alone. Weekend Update is regularly met with rowdy applause and this week, the two anchors earned it. Three jokes made me full-on LOL. To avoid giving away the best bits, I’ll just say my favorites were on Biden’s approval rating, Taco Bell subscriptions and eye patches. All worth seeking out. Interestingly, there was only a single correspondent this week; usually there’s two. The lone guest Elmo, in the news for a feud with pet rock Rocco, felt forced and hammy. It was an instance where they were making fun of something where the original was funnier. However, a cutaway to Rocco’s family of rocks saved the guest spot from completely sinking.

Triples:

Message from the President Cold Open: James Austin Johnson always scores. His Biden blaming Omicron’s overexposure on everyone seeing “Spider-Man” at the same time really pops here; this sketch is trademark JAJ too- the guy is a true pop-culture nerd and infusing that into his political impressions brings a new dimension to the tropes we’ve seen played out for years. Also, of note, Pete Davidson got a standing ovation when he entered like he was Kramer or something.

NBA on TNT: Bowen Yang as a disinterested, literally above it all Yao Ming can come back to the show anytime. As for the actual game of the sketch, “the NBA is so depleted they’re using regular people,” it’s a fantasy of mine that I dreamed of for years. To see it played out in such painful fashion for us normies was the cherry on top I didn’t know I needed.

Sappho: I embarrassingly couldn’t point out where this sketch was going when it began. Anna asked me what I thought the joke was and I guessed that it would be Mikey Day correcting Debose and McKinnon’s characters poems about Lesbian love; nope. The actual bit that completes the translations of lost, ancient poems with modern Lesbian relationship complaints is much sharper. “We cannot get another dog. We are maxed out on dogs. That being said, I found a feral pregnant cat behind the grocery store” was a banger. By adding punchlines to poetry, this sketch found a formal lyricism that is rarely found when writing jokes. 

Doubles:

“Family Matters” reboot: This would have been a full-on home run. Gritty Urkel is 100x funnier than his hammy sitcom character. Only reason I’m knocking points off is this sketch went three beats too far losing the playfulness in the process. First minute is perfection though.

Winter Formal: The “two characters” talk to the camera about their business formula is a bit played out to me but this sketch put a new spin on their pitch by having Pete Davidson (doing what seems like a Sandler impression) and Sarah Sherman roast their son who “wouldn’t even know where to start” that would be taking young ladies to the winter formal. The jokes here punch down on a specific type of nerd and soon veer into gross-out territory. Will give credit where it’s due though- I appreciate that they subverted the “parents that are TOO proud of their kid” stereotype.

New Governess: This “Sound of Music” parody was what they call in improv “crazy town.” Here, the Von Trapps’ neighbor children’s new head of household belts non-sequitur parodies in the place of actual “Sound of Music” standards. It’s goofy and makes an astute point- some of the lyrics in “Do Re Mi” make absolutely no sense even if the new, anachronistically inaccurate ones about Homer Simpson and Jamie Foxx in “Ray” aren’t much better.

Singles:

Ariana Debose monologue: Debose singing with McKinnon is good, clean fun (even when the two of them are hinting at innuendos) but it’s hard to rate a performance piece on the show that’s not pure comedy on a comedy scale so a single will have to do.

Kitchen Staff: This exercise in odd voices and costumes was a classically bold 5-to-1 sketch. Supremely weird, bordering on funny and absurd and then oddly sentimental at its end. I admire its willingness to be so freaking strange even if it's at the expense of actual laughs.

Also of note: “All On Me,” the cut sketch might have been the true best Chris Redd sketch of the night. His rapper character stuck footing an enormous bill that keeps ballooning perfectly captures money anxiety all over a hook-y beat. Definitely worth your three minutes if you haven’t seen it yet.

Next week, Will Forte hosts. Can’t freaking wait. I love the pandemic-induced random host roulette.

Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade: Former SNLers doing a podcast about SNL? Yo, sign me right up. To debut the new pod, the funnymen dropped two episodes with guests Rob Lowe and Chris Rock. They’re both essential.

Lowe and Carvey swap Lorne impressions (apparently Lorne said, “Only 900 of us are funny on the planet”) and tell behind the scenes stories like how the “Bohemian Rhapsody” scene in “Wayne’s World” absolutely blew the roof off of a test screening. Best of all though was Lowe’s anecdote about wearing fat suit prosthetics around town while shooting a film (outside of the SNL world) and living like the “other half.” It’s always fascinating to hear celebrities shamelessly acknowledge their fame in a somewhat tactless way. Great listen.

Somehow, the Rock episode was even better. I laughed heartily at the line about how he didn’t stay at the after-parties with the cast way back when because “Jackie Robinson wasn’t hanging out with Pee Wee Reese.” He’s a Hall of Fame level podcast guest. A quick story about his audition for the show where Dana Gould crushed in front of Lorne lets us in on a piece of lost SNL history- Gould could have theoretically been Adam Sandler had the show chosen him instead. Toward the end of the podcast, Rock shared his most profound thought of all, “People need humans to talk. In ancient Greece and Rome, they had philosophers. Then religion. Now, stand up. We’re the last of the speakers.” Not sure how true it is, but when it came out, it sounded beautiful.

There’s so much more. If you’re a fan of any of the names mentioned above, I highly recommend listening.

WTF with Bob Saget: When a celebrity passes, Maron generously re-posts the episode with a bit of commentary memorializing the recently deceased. It’s a nice tradition and honestly, I can’t think of a better way to mourn the dead than listening to them on a podcast they probably forgot they appeared on; you get to hear them at their truest, goofiest self. After somber strings play in place of the typical show theme, the actual interviews from 2010, 2014 and 2017 begin and Saget and Maron are hysterical together. Saget jokes about his dad’s nose being as big as one from Mount Rushmore, his favorite episode of “Full House” being “the last one” and how “Jews will always tell you what they ate.”

Some of the three-part episode doesn’t age well- there’s a lot of Louis CK and Woody Allen praise (Saget won the student Academy Award and didn’t accept the award just like Woody which is admittedly pretty punk). Plus, there are many ironic jokes about Saget’s death. Seems like this happens every time you listen to an old episode from someone who is now gone. I guess it’s inevitable but it doesn’t make it any less sad.

Saget, you brought us joy for so many years, and this podcast appearance did so again posthumously. You are certainly missed.

Also, fun fact, he kept all the “Full House” tapes in his garage.

• Expect a small little comedy thing from me next week.

Until then, please keep enjoying your swagless existence

Comedy Stray Notes January 9, 2022

• The definition of what a podcast can be is constantly expanding. I used to associate the medium with funny interviews not realizing that there was room for the creation of a much larger universe in a .wav file posted on the internet.

My friend Clayton Porter’s “The Finals In Phoenix” is of those ambitious universe-builders. 

The three-episode pod, adapted from a gripping short story of Clayton’s, tells the tale of a group of overly superstitious Phoenix Suns fans in July 2023 obsessed with the team’s fate. While grounded, this sports comedy soon veers into the supernatural. It’s also an homage to those obsessed with the belief that their actions can alter the course of a game they have no part in while also pointing out how futile their efforts really are. Well, except for one person who really can change the course of what’s happening on the court. 

I’m getting ahead of myself though.

Incorporating real Suns history (Bo Outlaw, Shawn Marion and Tom Gugliotta references are a gift for any Suns die-hard) with near-future scenarios, the story rewards basketball fans by honoring the past and playfully imagining how the game evolves within the next year. One recurring bit about how corporate arenas’ names across the leagues gets increasingly loonier over the next 18 months stands out as a humorous yet scarily realistic prediction of what’s to come.

Featuring chameleon-like narration by Chet Gole who voices every single character with compassion and a smirk, “The Finals in Phoenix” is a funny, moving and exceptionally produced series that rewards listeners at every turn. This is an immersive, cinematic furthering of the form that goes far above and beyond the written word. It’s an experience.

Plus, there’s an impeccably placed “In the Air Tonight” drop that gave me goosebumps.

• I’ve said it 100 times and I’ll say it again: comedy is better when it’s connected by a unifying thread. A special or an act with a theme is always more engaging than a disparate string of jokes. Pete Stegtmeyer’s “Pete-T.S.D.” is a fascinating and often laugh out loud 47-minute YouTube special that not only threads all its material together, it also soberly examines life during and after time spent in the military.

To begin, Pete ambles onstage for what seems like an extended riff on the new hit show “Squid Game” before subtly tying it into his wartime experience. From there, clever P.O.W.’s (plays on words, not “prisoners of war,” heh heh) abound. I want to spoil one joke so badly about an audience of one but won’t because you deserve to get to hear it for the first time yourself.  

In addition to the strong punchlines, Pete brings a lived-in humanity and humility to his anecdotes. One about sharing a plane ride with Dave Attell and Artie Lange that inspired him to start performing for the other troops led to the special’s best joke about a piece of crowd work he used to do with his fellow soldiers. By imbuing these stories with a level of truth that shows “Hey, I really lived this,” there’s an air of credibility to this special that’s typically missing from folks like me just doing make-’em-ups.

Bonus: There’s a story about Dustin Diamond AKA Screech from “Saved in the Bell” in here that is so perfect, you won’t believe it’s true.

• Food reaction videos rarely have anything to say. Every time I watch one, it’s just some schmo trying some new trendy thing and going, “Mmmm, that IS really good.” Yawn. There’s only one person who’s halfway decent at them and that’s Corey B who has turned watching other people make strange dishes into an art form. The TikTok sensation finds wild things to eat, recreates them showing folks that it doesn’t take a trained chef to make inventive foods and finally demonstrates how delicious it tastes with a surprised facial expression. 

Corey B’s Toks are fast, filled with goofy jokes and teach a valuable lesson- you can turn anything that tastes good into something that tastes even better.

• Saw myself a bona fide Oscar contender, HBO series and a few other odds and ends this week. Here’s a too long recap of it all. 

“CODA” (2021): This film was predicted to be a major player this awards season after taking home the U.S. Grand Jury Prize, U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, and a Special Jury Ensemble Cast Award (yes, I copied and pasted that from Wikipedia) and after catching it at home this week, it’s easy to see why.

“CODA,” or “Children of Deaf Adults” shines a spotlight on a mostly deaf family in Massachusetts. I say “mostly deaf” because in this family of four, only high school age daughter Ruby has the ability to hear. Both parents (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin, both bringing a jubilant energy) and her brother rely on her to be their full-time interpreter. The only problem is Ruby imagines a life where she becomes a singer. Classic push-pull.

Yes, the screenplay follows every familiar beat of the hero’s journey but what separates this movie from the rest of the coming of age genre is its full-on embrace of the hard of hearing community. The film never looks down upon the disabled treating them with a reverence and warmth that allows them to be funny, fully-realized characters rather than victims. 

Toward the end, I have to admit I felt the film’s first false note. When a montage appeared onscreen, I got discouraged that the movie was going to wrap up in a predictable, sappy way. Just then, it upended all my expectations. As the kids say, “Ya love to see it.” YOU CAN’T GO WRONG WITH THIS HEART-WRENCHING, SATISFYING AND SMART CROWD PLEASER (Streaming on Apple TV).

“How to with John Wilson” Season Two (2021): Last year, I wrote about Season One of this show saying it, “revels in catching mundane moments that are so mundane you never even considered them for comedic fodder” and “This is everything a comedy show should be: comfort food but also eye opening.” 

Nothing has changed.

A year and six episodes later, “How To” and its New York City b-roll is just as delightful and maybe even better than it was in its first go-round. 

Last time we watched, Anna Paone and I voraciously binged this show hungry for its new voice. Now that we’ve come to learn just how unique and life-affirming this hilarious program is, we spread episodes out for weeks to properly savor them.

In this season, the star and rarely seen narrator Wilson teaches audiences “How to invest in real estate,” “How to drink wine,” “How to find a spot,” “How to throw out your batteries,” “How to remember your dreams” and “How to be spontaneous.”

He never really gets to the bottom of any of these questions; more than anything, Wilson simply uses these prompts as an excuse to show off his poetic sense of humor observing the city, interviewing unexpected fringe members of society and casually dropping self-deprecating backstory. I had no idea Wilson made a feature film called “Jingle Berry” right out of high school or acted as a defendant on court TV; now I do.

For me though, the season’s undisputed highlight comes in its penultimate episode when Wilson visits a small but passionate “Avatar” convention. There, he meets a group of hardcore Na’vi devotees who get to the sad, yet surprisingly deep meaning about why the movie resonates with them in a way other motion pictures don’t. This short segment is just the right mixture of pathos and absurd; Wilson lovingly celebrates this group without ever forgetting that this is a comedy show. It’s a delicate balancing act and one that reminds you of what the juxtaposition of images can achieve all in a single frame.

Note: The show’s writer’s room includes aggro comic persona extraordinaire Connor O’Malley and Guggenheim Fellowship honoree Susan Orlean. 

This warrants a watch based on that simple fact alone.

• A month or so ago, a nine-minute behind the scenes clip of Jason Sudeikis talking about his SNL tenure was making the rounds on YouTube. When I say “making the rounds,” I mean it kept showing up as my “What to watch next.” Finally, I gave in to the algorithmic powers that be and tuned in. For fans of the show or Sudeikis, it’s a heckuva watch.

In this short video, Sudeikis explains that he first attended a live taping when his uncle George Wendt hosted. More great, little comedy history footnotes follow. For example, I had no idea that Sudeikis wrote on “Punk’d,” auditioned to be a Weekend Update anchor while he was just a mere scribe or got the job as a cast member after putting himself out there dancing in a Tom Brady sketch.

The video then closes on a bittersweet note detailing Sudeikis’ final appearance on the show. He didn’t get his goodbye sketch on the air- thanks to this video, we finally get to see what could have been.

“Smartless” with Jerry Seinfeld: Remember how I trashed podcasts for simply being funny conversations at the beginning of this newsletter? I might have said something about “not advancing the form?” Well, truth be told, sometimes I don’t mind. Especially when it’s Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes talking shop with Jerry Seinfeld.

Here, the four of them share an easy rapport gabbing about how critic’s choice award mean more, how to say “No, thank you,” when fans ask for autographs and how Jerry gets to talk about career stuff with his family for just a few minutes at dinner before boring them to tears.

As always, Jerry gives his all to the conversation, sharing the priceless observation about how he prefers comedians to show him something he’s never seen before rather than having them try and change his mind about something. I’d argue that an observation we’ve never seen before might change our minds but I digress.

Best of all, Jerry goes into the weeds, explicitly sharing plot points and bits from his upcoming “Pop Tarts space race” Netflix movie. It’s almost like you’re in the studio where it’s being pitched. I’ll be the first to say it: the man who made “Seinfeld” and “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” has a knack for making his projects sound good.

Side note: I learned from this episode that comedy writer Spike and cue card God Wally Feresten are brothers. 

Side note to the side note: “Jaws” composer John Williams’ son is the lead singer of Toto. Couldn’t help myself.

- My friend Tom Scudamore casually mentioned to me that there’s an A&E SNL documentary from 2002 floating around on YouTube. Now having seen it, I’d like to add that it’s a humdinger and a must-watch for all Lorne-aholics. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that this is the de facto behind the scenes look at the show.

Framed over the course of the week that Gwyneth Paltrow hosted in November 2001, the doc lets rarely heard from voices like bandleader Lenny Pickett (that guy that’s always sitting behind the host laughing during the monologue) and director James Signorelli have a moment in the sun instead of just Lorne (who is described as the show’s high school principal) and the cast (although there’s plenty from an anxious Ferrell who doesn’t want to overstay his welcome, a nervous Fey and cocky Kattan who “doesn’t want to be 60 and playing Mango”). 

There’s footage from cut sketches that show an alternate history where maybe Dean Edwards would have gotten a better shot on the show had his pieces made it to air. There’s even a moment where disgraced members of the SNL family Al Franken and Horatio Sanz are seen back to back. There’s a little bit of everything is what I’m saying.

Perhaps the most interesting moment though comes from new writer Emily Spivey who “bluffs” a sketch idea for the Monday meeting with the host. It gets a laugh but the sketch doesn’t get further after that. Anyhow, that got me thinking. We really need a history of the great bluffs in Monday pitch meetings. 

Someone at NBC: Please make this happen pronto for the 14 people in the world that would be excited by this idea..

• I am still a 33-year-old man active on TikTok. Please don’t shame me for the choices I’ve made in life. 

Anyhow, I semi-recently posted a new mashup featuring a so-good-you-can’t-believe-it’s-not-the-real-thing version of Dean Martin’s excellent “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime” that I think is worthy of a listen. It starts with a crackly melancholy and morphs into a full-blown party banger. At least that’s what I think.

• RIP Bob Saget. RIP Sidney Poitier. RIP Peter Bodganovich. RIP Betty White. Rough couple weeks. Also, sorry if I’m breaking the news to you here.

Signing off for now

Comedy Stray Notes January 2, 2022

• Last year, I said, “In 2021, I’m going to make a feature film.” A lot of people were like, “Hell yeah, bro!” and I was fired up. A production company had reached out to me and teased the possibility of them helping produce my movie. So, I reached out to a professional animator and had a minute-long teaser trailer made. Then, I did a table read of the screenplay with all my favorite actors. Next, I created a website so the project would look more legit. Finally, I started reaching out to C-list actors’ agents to try and get the project off the ground floor.

Around August, the production company stopped responding to my messages. No agents responded to my email (Beans from “Even Stevens’” agent said she’d pass it along to him but radio silence since then). 

At this point, I decided to give in. It may seem like I gave up a little early but this is when I made peace with this movie not being made. The work seemed like more work than fun.

Anyhow, I’ve said all of this to say that I’m publicly announcing I’m not going to publicly announce any New Year’s resolutions this year. If I make stuff or learn things in 2022, that’s great. If I don’t, I don’t have to feel any guilt.

So, here’s to the next 365 days, the year where whatever happens, happens.

• While writing Stray Notes last Sunday night, I thought of a dumb tweet. It read:

If you were to tell me in 1993 that in 2021 the most famous Olsen would be Elizabeth and the most famous Culkin would be Kieran, I’d be like, “I’m five, why are you telling me this”

134,600 likes later, it’s easily the most viral thing I’ve ever put on the internet. Is it funny? Debatable. I give it about a 5/10. Wouldn’t work on the stage. 

People argued vehemently in the comments about how Macauly is far more famous than Kieran (many, many people quote tweeted me writing “who tf is kieran”) and they’re probably right. I’m just hoping the Culkins and Olsens didn’t see this half thought of a tweet and say, “Why is this nobody commenting on our fame?”

Either way, I’m happy this dumb joke exists. It netted me 300 or so new followers, four subscribers to my newsletter (if you’re reading this, hello!) and a retweet from Jane Lynch. No complaints here.

• The awkward Christmas to New Years week is a time for year-end lists, recaps, resolutions (see above) and catching up on critically-acclaimed movies you haven’t seen yet (see below). However, there are a seldom few who are fearlessly dropping sick CONTENT. Here are their stories (all links in the comments).

- There’s something inherently ridiculous about unboxing videos. The meticulous tape removal and careful unwrapping only to reveal the fully-expected contents of the box is ripe for parody. 

It’s also what makes Barak Ziv’s minute-long video making fun of the concept so funny. Barak, playing reviewer Ari Samuels, treats his “cardboard pro X7P” box with care and wastes no time getting to a brilliant series of meta jokes exposing the vapidity of opening a box and showing off the new stuff you own. This one’s quick- watch it twice to make sure you don’t miss the “blink and you’ll miss it” bits.

- One of the kings of Jersey, Mark Henely, dropped the surprise laid back 12-minute Christmas special “MXRRX CHRXSTMXS, BXG DXG!” Filmed with a warm, casual atmosphere by director Ben Miller, Mark transitions effortlessly between crowd work trashing Christmas songs and prepared material like a seasoned pro. The closing chunk finds Mark walking a tightrope where he takes a risk with an edgy joke and miraculously works his way out of the hole to win the room back.

Stay for the credits at the end. Mark’s expressionless mug while a friend sings to him is one of the special’s best bits. 

- Speaking of edgy jokes sticking the landing, Jamie Wolf’‘s short yet fully-realized take on why he needs a white male therapist should be in the misdirect hall of fame. In the span of less than a minute, Jamie loses the crowd with an offensive-sounding premise, wins them back, loses them and gets them all over again. While watching, I thought to myself, “Where’s he going with this?” only to have my worldview expanded and simultaneously narrowed. 

Needless to say, it’s a damn good joke. The greats love to make things difficult for themselves and work their way out. Jamie did it multiple times here.

- This week, I had a vague idea of a tweet I wanted to send out. The general idea was:

New Years Resolutions

2021: Make a movie

2022: Go outside once or twice

It didn’t feel fully fleshed out and I slept on it. Eight hours later, I woke up and found that Ralph Anthony used this format to write a far superior joke that had gone mega viral. I wasn’t even mad. You can’t be angry when your version of the parallel thought is inferior. Took the L, wrote my inconsequential version of the tweet and bowed to Ralph’s dynamite version. I’m being intentionally vague so you check out his tweet and lavish it with the praise it deserves. It’s Onion-level writing.

• Earlier I mentioned that I caught up on movies that I missed. Thanks to the near-MoviePass value of AMC A-List, Anna Paone and I reserved seats to the theater three times and saw this trio of flicks (NOTE: Every single movie played the trailers for “Death on the Nile” and “Uncharted” ahead of the screening in case you were wondering).

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021): Never has a 2 ½ hour movie gone by so fast. 

When we got into the IMAX theater, I was immediately distressed- we were so close to the screen that it seemed impossible to enjoy any images on it. Once the story kicked in though, all my anxiety was quelled. This Queens-based banger picks up right where the last film left off. The world has discovered Peter Parker’s superhero identity which prevented his girlfriend MJ and friend Ned from getting into MIT since they were associated with Spider-Man. Parker’s solution? Get Doctor Strange to reset the world so no one knows who the man in the arachnid tights are. Of course, it goes awry. Then, the movie goes to a much more thrilling place than your typical Marvel fare. Doctor Strange’s spell unleashes all of the villains from the previous Spider-Man universes (Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, Rhys Ifans and Thomas Haden Church) and eventually a few other surprises that garnered real-life applause breaks in my theater.

The rest is your textbook superhero movie but it’s no matter. This is a major crowd pleaser that has everything. Each former villain subtly addresses their mental illness that comes packaged into their evil afflictions, there are cameos from comedic geniuses (JB Smoove, Hannibal Buress and Martin Starr all at once!) and on top of it all, winking self references galore. 

Before the movie, I read a fantastic article about how comedy films will be relegated to streaming in the future; the fact that movies like “Spider-Man” exist is an ok compromise for me. If smart comedy can be Trojan-horsed into theaters via superhero and horror pictures, I can live with it. 

* Can’t believe they didn’t address the “Spider-Man” musical. Also, poor Kirsten Dunst got the short end of the stick here. At the very least, she deserved a cameo. 

“West Side Story” (2021): We rang in the New Year at the theater. A person sitting near us said, “This is my sixth time seeing this movie. That’s how good it is.” I begged to differ. I felt every minute of this flick’s 2 ½ hour runtime. 

Even though there is a bit of lively energy to Spielberg’s romantic musical, the treacly story and mismatched stars put me to sleep. No joke, multiple people walked out of our theater. I can’t argue with the film’s songs, dances, cinematography and performances from Anita (Ariana DeBose) and Riff (Mike Faist) but a) I didn’t buy Tony and Maria’s pure relationship and b) it’s awfully hard to root for the problematic Jets (even if they’re the villains). This may just be a matter of taste but this reimagining of a reimagining left me feeling cold. It feels wrong to dislike something so critically beloved but I’ll stand by my (most likely undignified) opinion here.

“Licorice Pizza” (2021): With YouTube ads and commercials, I think I saw the trailer for PT Anderson’s latest featuring Bowie’s “Life on Mars” a good 30-40 times. From said trailer, I gathered that this was PT’s coming of age, puppy love ode to ‘70s sun-drenched Cali. 

That was pretty much right.

However, what I wasn’t expecting was the hangout nature of the film. Anderson’s screenplay throws logic and tight plotting out the window for a more fanciful toast to youth. It’s rambly, it’s messy, it’s funny, it’s full of life.

Here, 15-year-old actor/entrepreneur/serial charmer Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman AKA Philip Seymour Hoffman’s son) crushes hard on the 25-year-old school photographer’s assistant Alana Kane (Alana Haim of HAIM). The two have an immediate chemistry that’s far more believable than Tony and Maria’s short-lived fling. Banter, cross-country trips and “will they-won’t they” tension follow. There’s even a sharp commentary on how men objectify women no matter the scenario.

In the film’s rambliness, we’re treated to PT’s flights of fancy. Scenes that seem to be fragments from other screenplays he’s written sneak their way into the movie. Bradley Cooper steals “Licorice Pizza” as Barbara Streisand’s blowhard boyfriend and Sean Penn and Tom Waits yelling at each other is far more entertaining than it has any right to be. Both scenes could have been excised from the movie and the story wouldn’t lose a step. Their inclusion is what adds to “Pizza’s” loopy magic. 

After a while though, PT goes a step too far cramming in subplots, new love interests and implausible storylines that made the film feel more episodic than cinematic but a movie that has this many elements working in its favor is A-OK in my book.

* Don’t go in expecting to understand what the movie’s title means. You can find a dull explanation online but you won’t find a single mention of “Licorice Pizza” onscreen.

**Keep an eye out for a John C. Reilly cameo. You won’t see his face but he’s there.

“The Shrink Next Door” (2021): Reviews out of the gate for this Apple TV “Based on a true story” Will Ferrell/Paul Rudd two-hander were dismal. The Ringer and The New York Times panned it. Didn’t stop me. I watched the whole eight-episode miniseries and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Admittedly, it does take fifteen minutes for the story to bubble up, but once the charismatic therapist Rudd starts treating the anxious Ferrell (doing a bordering on offensive New York Jewish accent), the first episode finds its groove. Over the course of the next eight hours, the show plays the same note over and over but somehow it sings. Rudd’s hypnotized the wealthy Ferrell character into doing whatever he wants- making him get adult bar mitzvahed, buying a $20,000 signed Mickey Mantle ball, throwing parties on his behalf- and as an audience member, I wanted to see just how far this parable about toxic male friendship would go. 

Gaslighting is never pretty but it’s fascinating to see just how much a therapist could weasel out of their impressionable patients. There really is a gray area between helpful and greedy.

Also, I can’t give enough major props to one of my favorite actors Annie Boon for her turn as Will Ferrell’s mom. It’s an integral part of the narrative and she brings the right mixture of gravitas and humor to the role.

- Khaleel Raman’s podcast “Tight Five” has the best guests. SNL head writer Anna Drezen and Mulaney’s sister Claire back to back? That’s what I’m all about. In the Drezen conversation, she talks about the importance of making sure that sketches for the show have clear yet fresh premises. Certainly refreshing to hear a writer for the show talk about the struggles of coming up with ideas that meet that criteria constantly googling to make sure that what she’s writing hasn’t been done before. 

The most interesting tidbit she shared was that self deprecation doesn’t play at SNL. In your interviews to work there, you have to be comfortable and forthright with your skills rather than downplaying your abilities. That’s a $10,000 piece of advice for free.

Plus, a sheep took a dump during one of her sketches on live TV. 

On the flip, Claire Mulaney’s interview was equally engrossing. I loved how she said to never write something like, “the way the guy tips his hat is what makes this sketch funny.” Come up with hard jokes. Even more valuable was her note that “Light and fun is always better than clever.” 

Little tips for all comedy writers to keep in their back pocket from those that have made it.

• That’s all. If you missed it, I made a short vid about how I’d like to be the spokesman for Fresh Gourmet croutons. If you have connections to the salad topping world, please let me know.

I’ll close with my favorite Abraham Lincoln quote, “Turn the beat around. Love to feel percussion”

Comedy Stray Notes December 26, 2021

• It wasn’t an official Christmas gift but our Santa-like friend Fluke Human gave Anna Paone and me a tight holiday present this week when he hit us up and asked if we wanted to be in a sketch comedy video. As big fans of Mr. Human’s work, we quickly accepted. However, with Omicron running rampant through the tri-state, we decided to film in a very 2020 way. Rather than gather in an enclosed space, Anna and I set up a green screen in our apartment, planted the old DSLR nearby, put Fluke on FaceTime and had him direct remotely. Rather than send him footage that didn’t work, having him “there” with us made it so he got exactly what he needed. Plus, no commute.

The finished product is a five-minute ode to fictional super-producer Jerry Packedhouse. Fluke frames the story as part of the ongoing series “History of Haha” that takes a look back at the comedy of the early 2020s we haven’t experienced yet. It’s a genius concept- I don’t think I’ve seen a mockumentary make fun of the near future. For everyone roasting 2021, Fluke’s a step ahead of you- he’s already insulting trends that haven’t even happened yet.

PS: If you watch this, you’ll see a real line I used to use to bark people into shows back in the day. It wasn’t very successful but did get some smirks. That was more than enough for me.

• My favorite Christmas week entertainment is walking around and looking at people’s holiday lights. You get to see a lot of inflatable Minions that way. My second favorite pastime is watching really funny stuff that budding comedy star friends are putting on the web. Here’s a snapshot of what I clicked on and lol’d at these past few days.

- SantaCon is a supremely bizarre annual event that seems to be hated by everyone yet somehow still exists. I’ve seen a million jokes and vids hating on the day but I’ve never come across anything like Sam Zelitch and Tom Achilles’ frenetic, joyful “Ultra Men Vs The Santas.”  After a call from their harried manager (Mia Faith Hammond), the Ultra Men (Achilles and Carlos Nath) stumble upon SantaCon and with a look of gobsmacked wonder on their faces. In unison, they exclaim, “I think that’s it.”

Techno bliss follows. Rather than besmirching SantaCon for its irritating bro-y ‘tude, the dudes embrace the giddy nature of the day, dance with many, many Jolly Saint Nicks and even shout out “Burlington Coat Factory” and “Kohl’s.” Watch this one twice I say- the first time you see it, it may confound you because there’s nothing really like it. On second viewing, the sunshine vibes wash over you and the laughs come crashing in. Can’t wait to see what the Ultra Men do next.

- Everyone knows Christmas movies. You got your “It’s A Wonderful Life’s,” your “Home Alone’s,” your “Die Hard’s,” yadda, yadda, yadda. However, no one ever really talks about New Year’s movies. They’re out there but they don’t get the same respect. Enter Genevieve Rice. This past month, she’s taken to Twitter and compiled a list of the 31 best New Year’s flicks. It’s a fun concept and not only does she recommend quality cinema, she peppers each suggestion with a great line about the movie. For example, about the hilariously underrated 1990 movie “Metropolitan” she wrote, “An interesting little romp about why we should eat the rich.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

- If you aren’t paying attention to Zarna Garg’s TikTok, you’re missing one of the app’s greatest features. In addition to hilarious at-home featurettes, she also shares punchy stand up clips that are honestly too good to just be given away for free like this. A few weeks ago, she dropped “Love Love Love!” a minute-long rant about how Americans tell each other we love each other too much. It’s an incisive observation about our culture that she relates to her marriage in hilarious fashion. The closer in this bit gets FOUR different, totally worthy laughs. Now that’s a marriage of writing and performance that (excuse me, Zarna) I love.

- Not all of us (including me) subscribe to The New Yorker. However, if you have a few articles left for the month, I implore you to donate one of them to Alex Baia’s brilliant essay “Existentialist Blonde Jokes.” In it, Baia takes your classic blonde joke setups and flips them on their blonde heads to go to much darker places than your childhood joke books ever did. Since there are so many gems here, I’ll share just one as a litmus test:

“What do you do when a blonde throws a grenade at you?

Lament the absurdity of a world where science is used for war.”

If a bit like that’s for you, there’s a lot more where that came from in the essay.

• Amidst my ongoing “Succession” binge, I found time to take in quite a bit of “Succession”-adjacent content (also, please no “Succession” spoilers. I’m still a season-and-a-half behind).

“Don’t Look Up” (2021): How is this movie starring Leo, J-Law and Streep related to “Succession?” Well, other than playing like a B-level episode of the series, it was written and directed by none other than “Succession” pilot director and executive producer Adam McKay.

As satire, the story of two climatologists (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) who discover a comet hurtling toward Earth in six months only to find that the rest of the world is a) disinterested, b) becomes super scared once the President (a Trumped-up Streep) acknowledges the end may be near in an attempt to gain political leverage and then c) divides everyone into camps that believe different things about what the comet really is, it really tracks. 

This 2.5-hour movie holds a mirror to our present-day reality. Whether you think “Don’t Look Up” is a metaphor for climate change or COVID, one thing is for certain- the media controls the narrative and determines what we regular folk care about and believe.

However, as a film, the movie doesn’t quite work on the same level. While the impassioned climatologists give a beating heart to this socio-political dramatic satire (this one really runs the gamut of genres here) AND it has some truly inspired jokes (I actually clapped at one of the callbacks in the movie while watching from the couch- a first for me), “Don’t Look Up” could have stood to lose a good chunk of its running time. As important as the film’s message is- we’re already living it and shouting similar messages from the rooftops (or Twitter). If this was a lean 90 minutes and didn’t repeat the “the world’s going to end!” self-seriousness ad nauseum, I think it would have packed a much more potent punch. Satire works better the less it screams its message in your face. All that being said, I LIKED IT A LOT, I JUST WANTED A LITTLE LESS OF IT (Streaming on Netflix).

* If you see this movie, make sure to stay past the end credits. I’ll leave it at that.

- WTF with Alan Ruck: This was the first of three (!) “Succession” podcasts I took in. Now that I’ve started watching, I figured there would be ancillary content online and oh boy, is there. Maron interviewed a slew of the show’s lead actors but I was most curious to hear his conversation with “Ferris Bueller” star/Cameron Roy Alan Ruck. In their 80-minute chat, Ruck spills a few great stories about his life and the show. One of my favorites was about how he couldn’t find work post-”Bueller” and was roughing it at a menial temp day job. A month or so in, a co-worker approached him and said, “You’re that guy from ‘Ferris Buford.’” Ooh, so close.  For “Succession” fans, there’s stories about Ruck’s audition process for the show as well as how he figured out who his character was. Still, the best part is a throwaway Richard Kind story that’s so short and funny, I’m not going to spoil it here.

* Bonus “Succession” theory: Cameron from “Ferris Bueller” is essentially Connor Roy. A delusional, spoiled rich kid disconnected from his uber-wealthy father. Don’t question me on this- I clearly haven’t thought it all the way through.

- Fresh Air with Kieran Culkin: Man, Terry Gross is good at what she does. This 46-minute breezy pod went by so quickly, I did a double take when it was over (might have been all the NPR ads crammed into the interview). Although it felt short, Gross and Culkin still got in a lot of conversation.

Like many before her, Gross began by mentioning that she didn’t like “Succession” when she first saw it. Yet, after a few episodes, it really grew on her. I think the same could be said for anyone who saw Culkin’s freewheeling troll of a character Roman Roy in the pilot. Right off the bat, Culkin explains Roman’s motivations succinctly saying he plays him as a “someone who has never suffered any consequences for anything in his life” which really captures the essence of what makes him so great. Other tidbits from the show include a semi-juicy origin story for the Roman/Gerri relationship and a detailed breakdown of how the writers craft dialogue for each character.

After talking about the show, Gross dips her toes into slightly uncomfortable territory asking questions about his upbringing. Apparently Culkin doesn’t talk to his dad anymore. On a lighter note, Culkin tells a great story of how he didn’t know his brother Macauly was the star of “Home Alone” until he saw it. For those that may have forgotten, Kieran’s in the movie with Macauly. Kids are great. Best of all though was a story about how a fan came up to Macauly in the ‘90s and said, “Are you McCluckly McCluckly?” That’s even better than “Ferris Buford.”

*Note: This episode is a bit spoiler-heavy if you’re behind on the show so tread with caution if you haven’t seen everything.

“HBO’s ‘Succession’ Podcast” with Nicholas Braun: Big Cousin Greg fan here. I’d never seen him in the Disney Channel shows he was in back in the day or the movie “Sky High” so I was unfamiliar with his work before the show. Is Braun really like the character? The answer is yes. He affably stumbles throughout the interview in that distinctly Cousin Greg way. 

This short 28-minute interview doesn’t have quite the same flow as the other two but is fun all the same. Braun talks about how he wanted to become a serious actor after he was raised on Leo, DeNiro, Day-Lewis and Phillip Seymour Hoffman but pivoted after crushing it in comedies.  While talking about the show, he reveals that the writers input extra question marks in his dialogue for him to have a field day with. He also shared that he intentionally gives Greg hesitation and a chunkier rhythm to offset the speed at which the other characters spit venom at each other.

Some additional choice details about the character he spilled were that Cousin Greg’s dancing is allegedly based on an awkward guy he saw at a wedding dancing with abandon; he practiced being uncomfortable talking to strangers at the airport as long as he could before they would try and leave and his comedic chemistry with Tom (Matthew McFayden) was discovered on set. Damn, those writers are perceptive.

At the end, Braun drops that he counts Bill Clinton and Paul McCartney as Cousin Greg fans and refers to them by their first names “Bill and Paul.” Damn. Wow.

• Finally, I leave you with two comedy oddities I came across while on the web.

- The first is Matt Berry from “What We Do In The Shadows” put out a wonderful album this year called “Gather Up (Ten Years On Acid Jazz)” that sounds like a lost relic of ‘60s rock. Doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of Berry’s comedy or not, this record stands as a piece of music on its own. The opening track “Take My Hand” has been on heavy rotation for me this past week.

- CBS Morning News’ Gayle King interviewed Lorne Michaels about his upcoming Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievement this week. It’s your standard fare Lorne interview complete with abbreviated quotes from Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang. Nothing about this eight-minute chat would be noteworthy except for when King asks Lorne who his successor might be. It’s a great tense moment that will certainly be in the Lorne doc about how they chose his replacement coming exclusively to Peacock in 2025.

For more discourse on this, you ought to check out Pamela Ross’ tweet about how finding Lorne’s replacement is similar to “Succession.” She even etched a fun sketch in the replies about how this might all go down. Not only is the sketch worthy of being on SNL but it would be a great way to close out the epic “Lorne era” when he retires.

That’s all.

See ya in 2022. Yep, I’m one of those people that does that

Comedy Stray Notes December 19, 2021

• Right before Omicron officially pwned us all, there was live comedy at the beginning of the week. I participated. Over a month ago, riffer extraordinaire Todd Montesi generously booked me on his UG Comedy SHOW and I don’t take a booking lightly. To prep, I made sure to have two mics lined up ahead of time so I didn’t get onstage for an 8-10 minute spot with flaccid punchlines.

However, the beginning of this week wasn’t that long ago.

The old yet now new COVID fear was still there. So, I gave in and did something I’d wanted to do for a long time but didn’t have the courage to try out: comedy with a mask on. Yes, everyone is pro-mask but rarely does anyone ever perform with one on. I decided to swallow my pride and do my sets with a KN95 strapped to my face. Having now done it (using the opening line, “If I bomb, it’s the mask’s fault”), I can honestly say it’s not that bad. None of my sets were all that great but none were truly bad. I got laughs where I was supposed to and the material that didn’t hit was because it was lackluster and not the mask’s fault at all. Therefore, going forward, I urge more folks to wear masks while performing. Audiences won’t tune out like you think they might and it may stop or at least curb the rampant COVID spread in the community.

Getting off my soapbox now.

*Unrelated: I experienced something I hadn’t since 2019 where I went last at a mic and then was first on the lineup at a show. Running to the L to the 1 to a bar I’d never been to before was a rush I completely forgot about. Sometimes the commute is just as exciting as the comedy itself.

• Approximately four months ago, I finished taking Brent Forrester’s remote “writing the sitcom” class. Over the course of six weeks, I learned countless priceless writing hacks and tricks from one of the ‘90s, ‘00s and ‘10s greatest showrunners. As soon as it was over, I vowed that if Brent ever taught another class, I would take it again. Even if it was word for word verbatim what I’d already learned. That’s how good it was- the class simply just inspires you to start writing rather than daydreaming about the tv show you always wanted to make. Now, the class is back and Brent has promised a new curriculum. Starts up January at 5 p.m. EST. Sign up is $100 for five weeks. I can’t wait and I’ll see you there.

• In between refreshing the New York Times’ homepage for breaking news all day every day, I watched a few stellar sketches on the internet this week. Here they are:

- There’s something particularly funny about the Uber ride. Getting driven in a yellow cab is cold and often silent; rarely is there a moment of human connection. However, in Uber, you’re almost forced into a brief, friendly chat. In Yogi Paliwal and Ronnie Fleming’s excellent four-minute sketch “Doors,” they play on this social convention that ride shares have created. The two connect on a human level coming to a fundamental agreement on their respective car door philosophies. As Ronnie plaintively says, “People don’t understand. This is your car. It’s why bus doors are automatic.” To this passenger and driver, the door is sacred. Best of all, is the payoff. It’s a thing of beauty. Smart writing and hinted at all along. I give this one five stars.

- A lot of the TikTok experience is laughing at something, forgetting it existed, swiping up, repeat. There’s endless, fun, mindless content but rarely does any of it stick with you. However, occasionally, something you’ll see will get lodged so deep in your brain you can’t shake it for days. Jeremy Kaplowitz’s clever, animated, 90-second “When you criticize New York” is exactly that. A simple conversation between two people about the bagels in NY (or as he calls it “the Large Apple”) escalates into a fantastical debate with a mythical City icon who appears from out of nowhere to literally heighten the sketch. Sound arguments are made by all but a brief ode to the mythical bacon, egg and cheese is a showstopper.

- Certain videos you see and you instantly know, “Oh, this is viral good.” I felt it as soon as I saw the “Da Vinky” bros this summer (if you haven’t seen these dudes yet, it’s one of the funniest clips I’ve ever seen) and I certainly felt it this week when I caught Sami Bronowski’s one-minute “I’m back with my ex.” Deftly directed with a light comic touch by Dan Rosen, the two of them pack in sight gags, massive comic setpieces and inspired performances (including one from Sami’s unsuspecting ex he’s back with who I’m convinced wasn’t totally in on the joke here) to concoct a video that needs to be seen by all. It’s smart, it’s dumb, it’s triumphant, it’s romantic, it’s pure comedy.

- As noted before, I attended two mics this week and wanted to shout out my pal Andrew Harms who I’d seen perform a few times post-pandemics I & II (“Omicron” is number III in the never-ending COVID franchise) but really wowed me at Pine Box on Wednesday. Harms has always been great but he really elevated his game with this five-minute set. He opened with a rip-roaring bit about signatures that upset me that I’d never even thought to make fun of the concept of signing your name before. Just when you think everything under the sun has been done, a great comic like Andrew will prove you wrong. The rest of his set was filled with laugh out loud self-deprecating material  but that signature bit- it shook me. Look around you. There’s funny everywhere. You just might not be able to see it yet.

• Anna Paone alerted me that SNL was going to be weird this week after she got a Twitter notification on Saturday afternoon reading that there would be “no live audience” and “musical guest Charli XCX had pulled out.” Apparently there was a bit of a COVID outbreak within the SNL cast (allegedly Colin Jost, Aristotle Athari and Sarah Sherman were diagnosed and Lorne Michaels was coughing the week prior according to host and musical guest Billie Eilish) that caused this semi-cancellation.

However, as Lorne says, “The show doesn’t go on because it’s good, it goes on because it’s 11:30,” and without missing a beat, SNL turned in a halfhearted bummer of a Christmas show. Eschewing a traditional cold open with a “Live from New York” or cast introductions, Tom Hanks entered to take center stage. Tina Fey and actual host Paul Rudd joined him. The three bantered (I’ll admit Fey’s line, “This isn’t the smallest crowd I’ve performed for because I have done improv in a Macy’s,” got me) and introduced a smattering of pre-taped sketches from this week along with old standby Christmas classics generally reserved for holiday specials. 

Given the unique situation, many on Twitter wished the show had broadcast cut sketches from years past or done something unique with the platform rather than a rote clip show. I couldn’t agree more. Given the talent onstage, I would have much preferred to have seen them stretch their wings with a no-frills sketch that they’d written that day, one-act play or improv scenes (harkening back to Fey’s Macy’s days). There was a bit of that “Let’s put on a show!” spirit in a Weekend Update segment co-anchored by Fey and Che with an audience of three (Hanks, Rudd and Kenan Thompson) but mostly the show had a somber, defeated tone to it rather than its typical weekly cheer.

All that being said, one of the pre-tapes fit this melancholy vibe perfectly. “An Evening with Pete” inspired by “Raging Bull” painted a portrait of a washed-up Moe Syzslak-looking 2054 Pete Davidson who crowds egg on to do his Chad character. More than Scorsese, this black and white piece reminded me of the surreal, “longing for the early 20th century” work of former SNL shorts director Tom Schiller.

Amazingly, the cast and crew finished filming the sketch at 5 in the morning Rudd attested while introducing the piece. Comedy never sleeps. Crazier yet, while Anna and I watched the local news before the episode began, they broke that Davidson and Kardashian had rented out a movie theater in Staten Island that evening. Probably not the most COVID safe thing in the world considering the show probably told Pete to go home because of the outbreak but man, that guy is EVERYWHERE. He’s even on the freaking local news for going to a movie.

- I’ve been dabbling in listening to non-comedy podcasts lately and one of my favorites that I’ve stumbled into is “My First Million.” This week, when I opened Spotify, I found that I’d hit the jackpot as my interests were colliding- host Shaan Puuri had booked Hasan Minhaj as a guest this week.

Over the next two hours, the host and guest interchangeably interviewed each other about a number of topics. I learned that Minhaj got into comedy after seeing Chris Rock perform and thinking, “Oh, that’s just speech and debate with jokes” (a rough paraphrasing here) and Shaan’s start in the business world came after he realized that his dream of wanting to become an NBA team doctor wasn’t for him and he’d rather try to make a “Chipotle for sushi” happen. There are large swaths of fascinating conversation where the two discuss how Minhaj prepares for shows, who their audiences are (Kumon kids get a shout out!), how Hasan should handle his newfound financial success and what his place is in the comedy world (Puuri’s brutally honest assessment: “I can tell you’re not the funniest guy in the room but work really hard and practice”). Best of all, was a discussion about why Netflix is a more powerful platform than just reaching out to your fans directly with the “my new album is dropping, you can buy it for $5 here” business model.

This unconventional podcast is a breath of fresh air for those who enjoy business pods or comedy pods. More crossovers like this please.

• Well, the world is especially unpredictable again. Yikes.

Merry Christmas, and I’ll see ya next week, you filthy animals

Comedy Stray Notes December 13, 2021

• I’ve heard arguments that the short form nature of TikTok reduces our rapidly shrinking attention spans. To that I would say, it’s also forced creators to get better at grabbing viewers faster. As much as I’d like all my videos to be five minutes and take their time, it doesn’t take a genius to know that something a minute or less would perform much better (this thought brought to you by an unapologetically lengthy newsletter).

Anyhow, I tried out a little A/B testing this week for the first time and made two cuts of the same sketch with different lengths. The YouTube version of “The Movers” (starring me and Anna as a couple that bonded over moving- you should totally check it out) is 1:15 and breathes a bit more than the minute-long TikTok edit. YouTube has more jokes and flows better- it’s how the short was written and meant to be. However, I do believe that a shorter video on TikTok gets more eyeballs than anything on YouTube so I chopped this thing up, cutting jokes and employing jump cuts to get it to exactly 60 seconds. Which is better? Definitely the YouTube edit. The TikTok one has significantly more views though. I don’t think this is tied to my thesis that I’m grabbing viewers faster- it’s more tied to my second thesis which is that in 2021, it’s a lot easier to get people to watch your videos on TikTok than anywhere else. So, chopping stuff up to a minute is what I’ll have to do. Either way, give both of these a peep and tell me what you think of their minor differences- you may not even notice.

• In the middle of my weeklong “Succession” binge (nine episodes deep now), I occasionally hit pause on the remote to scroll the socials. It was a banner week for lol-worthy content and I figured I’d share the wealth here.

- Roast battles often culminate in “Main Events” between two heavyweights and the Dan Wickes v. Gianmarco Soresi contest was one for the ages. The two expert joke craftsmen went back and forth with insults that toed the line of edginess without tipping over at a quick clip. As always, there’s no value in my spoiling any of the jokes but I will say that this is worth watching not only for the A+ bits by these two but also for judges JP McDade and James Pontillo’s off-the-cuff riffs about Dan and Gianmarco. A running gag poking fun at Dan’s shirt got consistently funnier throughout the showdown. Check this out even if you don’t know these two- this 27-minute video is a blast and left the audience begging for overtime round after overtime round.

- My pal Fluke Human told me he was filming a sketch last Sunday. On Monday, he showed me the finished product. That kind of turnaround would impress the SNL staff. Better yet, it turned out great. Called “The Gig Economy,” the short takes place ten years in the future when Task Rabbit-types (they work for “Stuff Do-er” here) take on the world’s simplest tasks for inept tech bros. In the middle of the sketch, the premise blossoms when the “Stuff Do-er” watches a YouTube tutorial since he doesn’t know what’s he doing. It’s a piece of bravura satire, one that hints at a future where no one knows how to do anything at all. YouTube tutorials are our final hope.

- Dave Columbo’s minute-long press conference announcing he’s “changing all of his opinions” after having his eyes opened by trolls is the ultimate rebuttal to internet scum. This was all because he received the comment on one of his videos, “Nice try, but no.” He proceeds to unravel his logic for why he’s giving up his sound logic for pure idiocy. Sometimes the best way to shut down the haters is to simply repeat their arguments. 

- As noted earlier, Anna and I are deep into a “Succession” binge and with the season three finale having taken place last night, there was a wealth of short-form parodies to be found online. My two favorite were Alex Dobrenko’s “Watching ‘Succession’ is definitely affecting my parenting” and “If ‘Succession’ were real life” by Taylor Graysen. 

Dobrenko’s is a cruel yet hysterical take on how TV can have a negative impact on your daily life; in this case parenting a newborn. Peppering his real-life infant with insults like “I gave you a destination, I can’t walk you there” and then panning to a happy-go-lucky baby is excellent because it plays with our expectations so well. Just when you think this poor kid is going to start crying, we see he doesn’t mind at all. The jabs get harsher and the child becomes more and more blissfully oblivious in this short video making it funnier and funnier.

Graysen’s parody is more of a straightforward take on the show positing all of the characters played by Graysen and a few others in a kitchen setting up for Thanksgiving. Their impressions capture the essence of Kendall, Shiv, Roman, Tom, Cousin Greg and Logan in just 46 seconds so succinctly that it makes the entire show seem inconsequential. Anyhow, if you’re a fan of the show, this will either be hilarious to you because these characterizations are so spot-on or it may just ruin it for you. Watch with caution. 

- Jim Tews is one of the best working comics in the country and yet he still goes above and beyond to produce exquisitely animated productions of his bits rather than just slapping them online without having done anything to spruce them up like he easily could have. In his recent epic two-minute chunk “Every Day Is Picture Day,” Tews runs down how he always feels unprepared for how he’s supposed to dress ever since his class picture days in elementary school. Accompanied by vintage elementary school photos, stock footage, animated stand up, this quickie goes above and beyond what the average TikTok clip does bringing us TV quality production value and writing on a vertical screen. 

• In terms of longer form content, I listened to a podcast and watched SNL this week. Here are my slightly longer form thoughts about the two.

- The pod I caught was Malcolm Gladwell’s appearance on “You Made It Weird” with Pete Holmes. This was an especially interesting listen because the two are such an odd pair. Holmes is gregarious and really goes for any laugh he can while Gladwell is soulful, introspective and almost fragile. They start rockily after it’s insinuated that this guest booking came as a favor from Mike Birbiglia. There are funny lines like, “Zoom comedy is like having sex with the mattress in the middle,” but the chemistry isn’t there until Gladwell starts messing with Holmes telling him just how much he enjoys Birbiglia’s comedy. The author of “Blink” then proceeds to gush about Birbiglia for a good ten minutes. Pete tries to come across as a good friend praising his pal back until he can’t stand it anymore. After this hilarious interlude, the two found a groove. Gladwell dished brilliant observations and anecdotes effortlessly about how he’s a “maker, not a consumer,” turned down meeting U2 backstage because concerts aren’t his thing, and best of all, hates live sports because the “officiating ruins the storytelling.” If you’re a fan of either of these two, I’d highly recommend this episode- both are operating at the top of their game here once they fall into a shared rhythm.

- SNL hosted by Billie Eilish (who was born in freaking 2001) was a bit all over the place this week. The highs were crazy high and although the lows weren’t all that low, they were there. A few truly baffling sketches made the air and I’m here to tell you my official baseball-themed rankings.

Home runs

Christmas cards- My favorite of the night. Every year, I see Christmas cards and I never thought to make fun of them. Love when an unturned stone opens up a well of possibilities. By having the cards come to life from the overly religious family and well-manicured older gay couple talk down to the recipient (as well as others) made for a really well-realized game. These cards are speaking to us- I just never noticed.

TikTok- By miming the endless stream of scrolling through the app, this abstract sketch finds a game in letting short clips build into vignettes like nurses dancing with bed-ridden patients and excited “Spider Man” reviews rather than focusing on just one single idea. It’s a bold and simple experiment that paid off.

Business Garden Inn and Suites and Hotel Room Inn- I was a bit shocked when I saw this rapid-fire sketch make quick observations about generic hotels. The shock was mostly due to the fact that I made a very similar vid this summer in terms of content and style. I’ll be honest that SNL’s is superior- the sheer density of jokes on their end is unmatched (seriously this is very good) but the similarities are definitely there. You can compare the two and tell me if I’m crazy for thinking that my take is close to theirs.

Triples

N/A

Doubles

Kyle’s holiday- Another entry in a long line of “Kyle is weird around other cast members” that seems about as standard as can be with his trademark uncomfortable remarks. That is, until he gushes about which of his fellow cast members he loves and then one that he hates. It’s a weird, brave turn that feels too personal and as a result, the sketch differentiates from all other entries.

Eilish monologue- The 19-year-old was more than serviceable here poking fun at her acting skills. The heighten that her mom didn’t even cast her daughter in an independently produced movie starring her and her son and then came out wearing a shirt pronouncing how proud she was of her Eilish’s sibling Finneas was a great touch. Originally had this down as a single- just bumped it up to a double.

Weekend Update- One joke got an actual spontaneous full-on LOL from me about how difficult it would be to transcribe Sylvester Stallone on his new show where he’s doing an accent. The rest of Update had to cover nearly a month’s worth of material as the show’s taken a long hiatus. I especially liked 1) NBC censoring the two once they started talking about China, 2) calling January 7 the “day after Trump’s big anniversary” and 3) sympathy toward the AnimeCon attendees who were exposed to Omicron. The correspondents were hit and miss for me though. Punkie Johnson’s stand up about going home for the holidays didn’t quite connect for me as it got into strange gender politics territory that felt more half baked than inspired. I did really dig Andrew Dismukes’ animal handler piece where an octopus with predictive powers tells him he has seven days to live instead of the score of an NFL game. Points for embracing the darkness.

Singles

Fauci return cold open- The episode began with a bang announcing the return of Kate McKinnon as Fauci. However, this sketch felt straight out of mid-2020 with vaccine card jokes, COVID protocol bits and yet another Ted Cruz trot out. There were a few fun moments (“Guns don’t kill people, people people people people” comes to mind) but the already out of touch talking points here didn’t do it any favors.

Lonely Christmas ad- Fans seemed to flock to this parody of heartwarming holiday ads where two neighbors (McKinnon and Eilish) communicate “Love Actually” style with posters from afar. Things take a turn when the elderly McKinnon reveals herself to be a racist, violent monster whose trapped her son. It was all a little too queasy for me to enjoy although the writers do make a good point- don’t invite strangers into your home.

Groundouts

Santa Song- Didn’t quite get this one. A trio of singers croon about “the night they met Santa.” The banter where they explain the song (“Have you ever met someone who dreamed of meeting your whole entire life and when you got the chance it didn’t go as planned?” “Yes, but sing about it anyway”) hits but once the singing begins I got lost. Maybe the packaging was incorrect here- Eilish’s voice is so good that it made it difficult to see where the comedy is- at least for me.

Strikeouts

Hip Hop Nativity scene- Oof. Felt like an attempt to get 14-year-olds watching just for Eilish onboard. It’s just what it sounds like. Clueless white church ladies try to inject a bit of pizzazz 

into a classical Nativity scene with pimp walks, twerking, stripping, it’s a mess. 

Cut for Time

Angelo- Aristotle Athari’s original character came back to sing his little songs based on one-word suggestions from the audience that have nothing to do with the suggestion. It’s fine. You get the joke and then it keeps going. Definitely elevated by Athari’s strangely hypnotic singing and Mikey Day’s incredulity that “people are into this.”

Please Don’t Destroy- No idea why this was cut. The three dudes meet their future selves, a fun well-worn springboard for comedy but put their own twist on it. They made the bizarre choice to bring in three unknowns to play their elderly selves and while I would have preferred their actual dads (SNL writers Tim Herlihy and Steve Higgins are two of them) this left field idea might have worked even better. Worth a watch.

• As for me, you can catch me doing stand up for the first time since pre-Thanskgiving at Todd Montesi’s Wednesday 8:30 show at 287 Hudson Street. Yep. I even got that address ready for you. Hopefully, I prep a bit or two as well.

Peace, fam

Comedy Stray Notes December 5, 2021

• Whenever I’m at my childhood home, I can’t help but notice that I look pretty ridiculous in almost all the photos my parents have chosen to line their walls (there is one great one of three-year-old me hugging Winnie the Pooh at DisneyLand though). 

It’s my own fault that I look weird in pictures- my eyes are closed, I’m making a strange face, I’m not looking at the camera for whatever reason. Needless to say, I’m not an easy subject to make look good. So, rather than dwelling on this privately forever, I decided to do what everyone under 30 does when something happens to them.

I made a TikTok about it (Note: I’m not under 30).

Coming in at exactly one minute, I use the 60 seconds to analyze and attempt to explain these blown up images on display at my mom and pop’s home in Phoenix to get to the bottom of why I can never quite get smiling and looking at the camera right.

Anyway, the TL;DR here is you can see a handful of dumb photos of me in succession. 

There’s even one from my bar mitzvah.

• It’s been forever since I participated or even attended a roast battle but thankfully highlight clips of the best bits make their way to Instagram all the time. This week, the funniest one I saw came from a smackdown between Drew Drevyanko and Andrew Manning. In the 30-second clip shared here, Drew dishes up a monster joke and just as the laughter subsides, Manning treats the punchline like an alley oop and tags it like a pro.  I wouldn’t just recommend watching this one- I’d say play it on a loop. It’s that good.

 • In my misspent youth, I spent a lot of weekends at the local mall browsing baseball cards trying to haggle with middle-aged men over $2 Sean Caseys and $5 Ichiros thinking “years from now, I’ll have the last laugh with all my priceless rookies.” Well, the years have passed and my cards aren’t worth as much as I thought. However, there are a ton out there that can really make you a pretty penny. That’s where Ray DeVito comes in. He dropped a new video this week explaining various cards’ current value that mixes comedic chops with sports fandom and knowledge seamlessly. Who knew a Satchel Paige or Ja Morant could net you so much cash? Maybe I’ll just hold on to my Ichiros a bit longer.

• Saw two movies this week. Both starred Adam Driver. That’s just the way it is in 2021. He stars in all of them. Those are the rules.

“Annette” (2021): The biggest letdown of the year. No question. I was beyond excited for Leos Carax’s first feature after taking nearly a decade off after he made my favorite movie of the 2010s “Holy Motors.” The trailer amped me up. The synopsis “A stand-up comedian and his opera singer wife have a two-year-old daughter with a surprising gift” had me counting the days until its release. Once I saw Sparks was doing the soundtrack, I couldn’t wait any longer. Then, when it hit Amazon back in August, Anna and I started it.

The opening scene was a firecracker dynamo. The musical duo Sparks’ pulsating piano and the free-flowing camera walking Driver to the show gave me chills. Carax still had the lively sense of surrealism that made “Motors” so special! Then...it got serious. Too serious. Driver, playing the “comic” Henry McHenry, lectures crowds about comedy wearing a bathrobe and the audiences eat it up. I was trying to draw parallels the whole time- is this supposed to be satirizing a Joe Rogan or Bill Maher type?- but there was no obvious surrogate for who or what this character was supposed to represent. Plus, it was too wrapped in trying to say “something about entertainers” that it missed what makes entertainers great: they entertain us.

Elsewhere, McHenry’s wife, Anne (Marion Cotillard) the opera singer, sings beautifully in front of lavish sets. No winking irony here- just opera. Then, the two of them live happily together earnestly singing “We love each other so much.” The song made Anna and me laugh but I have no idea if that was supposed to be comedic or not.

My new justification at this point was that this must be how the French view overexposed American celebrities. In that sense, it sorta kinda works. For a while.

Without spoiling the film, the McHenrys conceive and give birth to an eerie CG Pinocchio puppet child. At this point, Anna and I turned the movie off. I didn’t want to see anymore.

Three months later, we returned to finish it. It got darker and weirder. I’d never seen anything quite like this movie before but it all still seemed so predictable. Also, Simon Helberg from “The Big Bang Theory” plays a very serious conductor for some reason. 

There was a flash of brilliance late in the movie when women in a club sang, “All these men hate themselves but want us to love them” but other than that, this pity party made me sad. A director I loved got to do something on a grand scale and WHIFFED IN THE WEIRDEST WAY POSSIBLE (Streaming on Amazon Prime).

“House of Gucci” (2021): This was by far the superior Driver movie. The dialogue surrounding this new Ridley Scott feature mostly centers around the ridiculous borderline offensive Italian accents the characters trade in. Admittedly, it is distracting at first. Yet, once you give into Driver, Lady Gaga, Al Pacino and Jared Leto doing their over the top best, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a pulpy, fun tragedy that has a lot to offer.

Force of nature Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) works at her father’s trucking firm by day and clubs at night. While partying, she runs into mild-mannered Maurizio Gucci (Driver) whom she dances with and then stalks at the library the next day. Soon after, they’re inseparable. This is a point of contention between Driver and his father who refuses to allow his high class son to commingle with someone of such lowly stature. Maurizio is 86’d from the family and works his way into the Reggiani trucking family business. This isn’t called “The House of Reggiani” though. Gucci goes back to Gucci and rises the ranks with the help of his ruthless wife who charms, bamboozles and tears the family apart.

The above is probably the first hour of this 2.5-hour behemoth of a film. I’ll admit I wasn’t quite feeling it at this point. Rich and famous people struggling and talking about business deals makes me yawn. Give me real conflict, Ridley!

Then, just as I was about to write this movie off, “Gucci” ramps up and I won’t spoil how.  

It’s way better to see where this splashy based on a true story movie that feels like a sketch, reality TV show and miniseries all rolled into one goes on its own. THIS MOVIE IS TRASHY FUN, KNOWS IT’S TRASHY FUN AND EMBRACES IT (Now in theaters). 

Note: Everyone in my theater at the end of the movie was saying, “That was Jared Leto?!” but no one was talking about how damn funny Salma Hayek was in an extended cameo as a psychic who aids Patrizia. That character deserves a movie all of her own.

• Listened to one quick podcast this week from a few years back. 

I was sitting around wondering “Whatever happened to Paul Brittain who was on SNL for a year and a half from 2010-2012?” and decided to see if he had any podcast appearances explaining his departure. The one I found “Entry Level with Brooks Wheelan” (another SNL cast member with a crazy short tenure) doesn’t really answer the question but does erase some of the mystery behind the guy who never really got a shot.

The conceit of Wheelan’s podcast “Entry Level” is to ask guests about their jobs before they made it and Brittain details his time as a teen working at pizza shops and getting paid peanuts for covering a newspaper route in Illinois. We skip forward a few years and Brittain shares a fantastic anecdote about having to be on set for his first commercial acting gig. Unfortunately, it coincides with his team, the White Sox about to win their only World Series in the past 80 or so years. Poor dude had to watch from a bar where no one cared. Then, the next day on set, it was so cold that the camera picked up the actor’s breath. The trick to make it so your breath doesn’t show? They have actors suck on ice cubes in the cold right before their takes. Brutal. 

Finally, the last section of the podcast takes us up to Brittain performing at Improv Olympic under Mike O’Brien as his coach which leads to a successful SNL audition and then Brittain triumphantly signing a seven-year contract which didn’t end up working in his favor.

The aforementioned seven-year contract led to a discussion between Anna and me. I’d never given it much thought but now I was wondering “Does everyone at the end of seven years get a show?” I’m thinking of:

Kenan’s “Kenan,” Aidy Bryant’s “Shrill,” Cecily Strong’s “Schmigadoon,” Kyle Mooney’s upcoming “Saturday Morning All Star Hits” and Michael Che’s “That Damn Michael Che Sketch Show” from the current cast.

Anna said it best, “Maybe the seven years are just a long audition for prime time.” 

That’s gotta be it.

• Bonus reading for this week:

-There’s an excellent Adam McKay profile in Vanity Fair about the director’s upcoming “Don’t Look Up.” I loved McKay’s made up introductions for himself sprinkled throughout the story and the backstory behind his rocky relationship with Will Ferrell. My only quibble here is that McKay says, “If there’s justice in the world, I’d probably be making $140,000 a year” like that’s not a lot of money. I’ll let it slide but that’s the cringiest quote I’d heard in a minute. 

-The Washington Post profiled Lorne Michaels. It’s the umpteenth “Lorne cares more about this week’s episode than its entire history” profile but this one is particularly well-written inserting the reader into Lorne’s shoes while the show is just about to go on air. Great details like, “Surrounding him are cabinets and credenzas crammed with three-quarter-inch tapes of episodes going back decades, labeled with host and musical guest: “JIM CARREY and Soundgarden.” “ELLE MACPHERSON and Sting” jump off the page.

Later in the piece, Lorne uncomfortably skates past questions about his power and influence. Makes you wonder just how much the original draft of this story was edited to ensure it was up to snuff. Great read for fans.

• That’s honestly all I got this week. There’s really nothing else

Comedy Stray Notes November 28, 2021

• Due to the little known holiday “Thanksgiving,” I took a “watching” and “doing” comedy break this past week. I mean, yeah, I saw some movies because it is the laziest seven-day stretch of the year but that was basically it.

So, for slow entries like this, I stockpile a few great videos from the past few months that were shared by friends and spotted on da web.

Without further ado, here are some small gems I’ve hoarded that are worth your time.

- Following the “Get Back” documentary chronicling The Beatles’ day to day production of “Let It Be” (full disclosure: I haven’t seen it yet), Fab Four Mania is back.  If you feel like you’ve heard the story of Yoko and John and Paul a million times, might I suggest a palate cleanser that gets everything about the group wrong instead? Recommended by sketch connoisseur Sam Zelitch, “Beatles 3000” by Scott Gairdner is a spot-on parody about how history distorts and futzes the truth. In this nearly four-minute clip, “future historians” in the year 3000 discuss the contributions of “John Lennon, Paul McKenzie, Greg Hutchinson and Scottie Pippen” to future folks. Everything this video gets wrong is so right and made Anna Paone and I laugh so much. Re-watching this months later, it’s even better the second time around.

- I loves me a conceptual late night set. So many comics play it safe doing tried and true “A” material but every so often, someone like a Nate Fernald throws all conventional wisdom out the window and goes for broke committing to a silly joke. In this case, Fernald walks onstage on James Corden’s Late Late Show as “Trey Wakeman” and does material from March 2020 because that was what “Corden approved and wanted him to do on the show.” Starting with shlocky Trump bits before hopping to heightened observations about COVID before we knew what it was, this is an excellent balancing act of smart and dumb comedy. I caught this one thanks to Amy Smith and I’m so glad I did- nice to know that offbeat late night sets that would feel at home on Conan in the 90s are still cutting up audiences. Stay until the end when it becomes a commentary on comedy in and of itself.

-  I’m late to the party on TikTok personality Lubalin. A few weeks back, I saw his name on a list of “Best Online Comedians” and after clicking through each one, his stuff left the other “Best Comics” in the dust. The first time you see a Lubalin, it’s like a new comedy language. In the one-minute video shared below, Lubalin and Charlotte Cardin turn Yahoo Answers about pregnancy into lyrics for a catchy pop song. The dumber the lyrics get and the more high quality the song becomes, the more brilliant the idea becomes. Many of his other videos center around poorly written internet dramas reimagined as Weeknd-like jams and I’ll admit after awhile the shtick may run its course. However, don’t let that dissuade you from checking this guy’s stuff out. It’s truly unique and at times on par with The Lonely Island.

- Will Ferrell talk show appearances are comedy appointment viewing. Along with Rickles, he might be the GOAT of sitting on couches and chatting with hosts. Just when you think he’s done everything, the GOAT comes in and turns the standard guest appearance upside down showing up on Kimmel when Ryan Reynolds was booked but couldn’t make it. Conversely, on Fallon that night, Reynolds showed up in Ferrell’s spot. I’m not 100% sure the hosts were aware of the bit ahead of time or playing dumb (probably the latter) but what a simple, original idea. After the initial “confusion” where the flustered hosts try to make sense of what’s going on, the guests milk the premise both not knowing a thing about the project the other is promoting. Ferrell tries his damndest to set up a clip for “Red Notice” without ever having seen it and Reynolds crushes by using loopy logic to explain how “The Shrink Next Door” is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So clutch. That sly ol’ dog Ferrell still has tricks up his sleeve.

- Reading and listening to comedy analysis is a close second favorite pastime for me after watching good ol’ jokes. Right now, there’s no better straight-faced analyst and historian for me than “Kothtok” on TikTok who dissects topics like why Hank Hill says “dang it” to Bobby instead of his customary “dammit” or “why Lisa Simpson stayed a vegetarian.” It’s comfort food for both sides of my brain- there’s classic clips of favorite animated shows from my childhood blended with straight-faced rationale for why these shows made the choices they did. Kothtok’s Tok is essentially like a great podcast with tons of facts packed into less than a minute. There’s a lot more to 90s TV than met the eye.

Sat on a plane for a good 12 hours this week. Thanks to Delta’s healthy movie selection, here’s what I peeped:

“A Christmas Story” (1983): This movie walked so “Home Alone” could run. Often considered one of the all-time Christmas comedy classics, this was always a major gap in my movie-watching resume. Just never carved out 90 minutes for the story of Ralphie and his beloved Red Ryder BB gun. So, on Delta flight number three of four, I made the time. I liked it.

The movie is mostly a joyful trip down memory lane to childhood. Ralphie (played by Peter Billingsley who went on to direct “Couples Retreat,” yeah, really) is a determined nine-year-old after the gift of his dreams which happens to be a BB gun. Makes sense since it takes place in Indiana after all. A brief scene where young Ralphie is proud of his basic essay where he wrote, “I think everybody should have a red ryder BB gun. They’re very good for Christmas I don’t think a football is a very good present” is pure comic gold. Anyhow, the movie wisely addresses how ridiculous it is for a kid to get a gun that young and plays with audience expectations all the way up until the very end.

However, now that I’m a bit older I found myself identifying with Ralphie’s parents more than the lead himself. They were an oddly mismatched couple- a stodgy, fuddy duddy dad who feels an immense sense of pride winning a “fra-jee-lay” leg lamp and a free-spirited mom (Melinda Dillon, so good) who encourages her youngest child to eat by having him impersonate a pig. No idea how these two ended up together but they make for a bizarre pair that you can’t take your eyes off for the entire movie.

Although some jokes are painfully dated (see the restaurant scene that closes the movie), this movie mostly holds up evoking a sense of 20th century childhood nostalgia that anyone who has ever wanted a gift more than anything in the world can relate to. 

“Nine Days” (2021): Edson Oda’s bizarro take on how a soul enters a new body somehow left me enchanted and bored. Essentially, a former living human being (Winston Duke, playing a waaay too serious human condition spectator) chooses the soul of a prospective person to inhabit a new human being’s body through a grueling nine-day series of interviews and challenges like the hypothetical “If your child tried to run away in a concentration camp and you were faced with either having them executed or everyone, what would you do?” Heavy stuff. 

I was a) enchanted because each of the prospective candidates (most notably, a status-quo challenging Zazie Beetz, combative Bill Skaarsgard and an aww shucks, no point in taking anything seriously Tony Hale) represent the type of person that Duke’s character Will could bring into the world. It’s a big responsibility. What does the world need? A leader, a bully, a friendly face, a sensitive artist, a romantic? Basically, imagine “Soul” but with an arthouse indie streak featuring scenes of pure beauty where Will gives rejected candidates an opportunity to experience their idea of a perfect moment on Earth. Yes! This I could get onboard with.

However, like I said, I was b) bored a lot too. As creative as this film is, in its weighty non-reality, it was hard to buy into the ground rules set here. Plus, too many grandiloquent, poetic speeches went five beats too long dropping exuberant fun for pretension. 

I wanted to love this movie but ended up merely liking it. It’s so close to being incredible but instead lives in a middle-ground purgatory like its characters.

“Space Jam II” (2021): On the last leg of my travel back home, I overheard a kid say, “I saw the new ‘Space Jam II’ and loved it.” That checks out. This is a movie for kids that has bursts of pure fun but leans a bit too heavy on the cheesiness even for hardcore apologists of the original ‘96 classic original with MJ and Bugs.

First of all, let’s be honest. LeBron can’t act. Sorry. I just didn’t buy a word he said. Now that that’s out of the way, we can talk about the movie. 

Set in a reality where LeBron’s fictional two children live in a gaudy mansion, one aspires to hoop like his old man while the younger sibling dreams of creating video games. King James can’t handle this nonsense and insists he go to basketball camp even though he has a video game playing past himself. After a meeting where the former Heat and Cavs star turns down a partnership with Warner Bros. with a wasted Sarah Silverman and Steven Yeun, James and his son end up in a virtual reality multiverse where the younger James has to play his dad in a game masterminded by (sigh) Al G. Rithm (Don Cheadle?). The toons are there as are all characters from the Warner Bros. canon. Somehow, though, rebooting the “let’s round up the whole gang for a wacky basketball game” just felt like a weightless cash grab this time around.

I did find some good with the bad- the film is a visual stunner and a running gag where characters say “ball” and a ball appears really works. There’s even some pointed commentary poking fun at the ridiculousness of LeBron’s weird, storied NBA career. That’s about all that really clicked for me if I’m being honest.

I’m glad the kid on the flight liked the movie though. That’s who it was really made for.

“King Richard” (2021): Tennis is a great sport. However, it doesn’t translate to cinema quite the way baseball, basketball (maybe not “Space Jam II”) and football do. Something about watching a great rally doesn’t feel as urgent as a bottom of the ninth homer or last-second half courter/Hail Mary. No matter here though- the tennis scenes are secondary to this true story of the stubborn Richard Williams (Will Smith doing an accurate but slightly distracting voice here), father of Venus and Serena (as well as three other girls who never became household names). He spends his days begging professional coaches to take a chance on teaching his daughters for free but they all pass. Little do they know, they’re missing out on coaching the greatest prodigies the game has ever seen.

Since 99.99% of people who see this movie will be familiar with the Williams’ sisters success, a lot of the dramatic tension is sapped from the film. Venus and Serena will be fine even if their dad makes unorthodox decisions like refusing to let his daughters compete in their early teens so they can have a childhood and dumping Pete Sampras’ coach over petty disagreements. So, we as an audience, just have to go with what we don’t know about the story to give it narrative juice. 

The director Reinaldo Marcus Green ends up getting a lot of mileage from parental disputes between Smith’s Williams character and the mother (Aunjanue Ellis, a standout) who volley insults harder at each other than young Venus and Serena’s strokes. Scenes with Jon Bernthal’s befuddled coach trying to parse together Richard Williams’ logic are fun. The kids playing the young Williams sisters are real finds too simultaneously injecting warmth into their characters while also believably playing tennis at a very high level. The whole thing is a lot like tennis- great in spurts but doesn’t quite translate to cinema. A documentary might serve this engaging material better.

• Due to it being Thanksgiving week and all, I wanted to throw out how thankful I am for my Sunday Zoom writer’s group with regulars Steph Mark, Tom Scudamore, Jake Kaye and Jess Dungan along with a rotating cast of characters that show up. For anyone reading looking to join a no strings attached writer’s group, I’ve never been part of one that has been as long-running and fun. It’s a low stakes, no-pressure environment where we read stuff that’s five pages or less every week at 1 p.m. EST. If you want to ever join in for a week to share a sketch, short story, jokes you wrote, anything at all (as long as it’s roughly five minutes or less), drop me a line and we’ll send you that Zoom link. You can come by and just act if you want too. There’s really no rules here. That’s why I’m so thankful for it and all.

• Sad to say I donated a lot of my old books and DVDs that were living rent-free in my parent’s garage for the past decade this week. If you’re a comedy nerd in the greater Phoenix area, there’s a ton more “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Seinfeld” and “SNL” DVDs at the Goodwill on 7th Avenue and Indian School than there were before. Someone who loves special features is in luck.

Also, gave away quite a few “How to filmmaking” books. I probably should have read more of those. 

Gotta go now. Gonna go celebrate the little known holiday “Hanukkah”

Comedy and Community Theater Stray Notes November 21, 2021

• My wife Anna Paone is a friggin’ auteur. I’d always known it since she showed me her stylish, complex thesis film “The Leaders and the Rest” when we started dating. Later, it was confirmed when she completed her slyly funny time travel drama “Our Lady of the 80s.” However, now, she’s made her ultimate statement piece with her theatrical interpretation of Mervyn Peake’s 1950s classic “Gormenghast.”

When I read the script, I thought it was unproducible on a small budget- there were too many set pieces and too many characters for me to imagine. Lo and behold, I had no vision. I just couldn’t see it like an auteur like Anna might.

Staged at DuCret School for the Arts in Plainfield, NJ, Anna and her mom Catherine Lamoreaux reimagined the school’s basketball gym as a gothic castle to house the royal Groan family and their menagerie of chefs, servants, doctors and elders. The tragic story is a compression of multiple novels in the fantasy series telling the tale of the Groans, a clan rich with tradition disrupted by the sociopathic rapscallion Steerpike who sneaks into the house and lets his evil seep into all facets of the kingdom. 

The dense script is lightened by Anna’s deft touch as a director- an orchestral score, moody lighting, inventive staging (the way the dead are whisked offstage wowed me), fleet of foot fight scenes, tasteful eroticism, characters with internal logics that all culminate in a surreal tone poem that’s equal parts Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Amblin-era Spielberg, steampunk and Anna herself.

On top of all that, the director (Anna) played Fuchsia Groan, the play’s lead female role embodying her with a quiet sadness that served as the production’s soul.

Keep an eye out. My wife’s a star.

• As part of the annual New York Comedy Festival, the SNL newbies put on a show at Brooklyn’s Bell House. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. SNL is known for criminally underusing their new talent so a showcase to see what the producers saw in these Not Ready For Prime Timers was a treat for a comedy nerd like myself. 

The show, Punkie Johnson and Friends, was a 2.5-hour standing room only party with Johnson hosting fellow second-year cast member Andrew Dismukes, freshmen James Austin Johnson, Sarah Sherman and Aristotle Athari plus new writers Vannessa Jackson and Alex English performing stand up.

Punkie kicked it off saying, “We want you to see who we are beyond the costumes” and then introduced all the acts. Out of respect for working comics, I’ll keep my notes on their sets brief but here’s a synopsis of what each performed:

Vannessa Jackson: Strong punchline-heavy set about less than ideal roommates and modern dating. My favorite bit was a great chunk on the best places for couples to meet that would fit right in on the show.

Aristotle Athari: I’d just seen Aristotle perform at Carolines and this outing was similar to his last one with a few added flourishes. His joke about why men don’t want to have children is a crowd-pleasing delight though that was just as funny the second time around.

Sarah Sherman: One of the most effortless riffers I’ve ever seen. She entered with high energy deconstructing the room and then an extended bit about how her dad get anyone any type of job earned an extended applause break. Plus, her joke about the beach (not repeated here ‘cause I ain’t about spoiling material) was one of the smartest observations I’ve heard all year.

James Austin Johnson: Low-key, absurdist jokes were followed by his Trump impression where he had the former President recite Radiohead lyrics.  He also brought a spot-on Bobby Flay loudly introducing Food Network shows after his own. It was workmanlike and wholly original at the same time.

Andrew Dismukes: Right up top, Dismukes launched into an extended interactive clapping opener where he yelled at an audience member for not following. He had quite a few funny moments- I loved when he bragged that he could call Mikey Day RIGHT NOW and a story about how he grew up with a goth brother.

Alex English: Been an Alex fan for a super long time and this set solidified that even more for me. A bit about girls that took gay guys to prom hit harder than anything else all night. Well, maybe his chunk on white people at BLM protests hit harder. What I’m trying to say is this was a monster set.

Then, Punkie and Alex proceeded to goof off onstage for a good 30 minutes telling inside baseball stories about an after-party with Taylor Swift (she was the musical guest the night before) and their philosophy when they write together. SNL is great but I’d watch a show that was just Punkie and Alex shooting the breeze. They have a completely natural chemistry. Look out for it in 2025. Calling it now.

Punkie Johnson: The host closed the show making fun of people not qualified for jobs saying “No one is a fast learner” and then compared it to her SNL experience. It was fascinating to hear her perspective on the first year and change on the show. Insightful and self-reflective, I’d watch a whole special just about her thoughts on working at 8H.

• Kristin Manna, Lauren Hope Krass and Gabe Mollica’s “The Laughter Times” at QED is the rare NYC show that’s TOO good. The kind of show where it’s a parade of comic after comic batting 1.000. Every joke lands and the crowd isn’t just chuckling- they’re full-on belly laughing. Maybe it was just the show I was at and the caliber of comics on the lineup (Justy Dodge, Igor Martinez, Caitlin Reese, Gastor Almonte and I⸺ yeah, even I did well) didn’t have a moment of silence in our sets. If this sounds hyperbolic, I genuinely mean what I’m saying. This week night crowd was onboard for everything. As for my set, I started super hot and stayed that way with all stuff written in 2021 (save for a seasonal opener that I use every autumn) up until my final bit when I wrapped it up with a tried and true closer. I stumbled, saying the joke out of order. Somehow, the crowd was so forgiving that when I repeated myself and said the joke correctly it STILL worked. 

Make this show a priority hang- the hosts are great, the crowd is hot. The Laughter Times really lived up to its name.

• The more stand-up I do getting back into the swing of things, the less I’m writing about mics here as they become more commonplace and blend together. However, I’m making a special expectation for the midtown curio Yara. Nestled on the east side of 53rd Street in the basement of an upscale Mediterranean restaurant, this is not your average dive bar turned downstairs amateur comedy hour. It’s classy. The mic itself is no slouch either. Run professionally with an air of authority and friendliness by Brett Singer, it went down quick and easy like any good comedy scrimmage should. Special props to my pal Phill Causey for his chunk on the housing lottery- I’d written a bit about the subject months ago but couldn’t quite crack the nut. He found what was truly funny about the absurd NYC real estate practice that I was scratching the surface on. Book the guy to see it yourself.

• Andrew Schiavone has a can’t miss Instagram. His blend of clips and jokes often jumps to the top of my algorithm and for good reason- I like everything he writes. This week, his quick joke about Day Two of a “No Sugar Diet” made me do a spit take. He perfectly captures what no one talks about- the comedown after the initial pride one feels 24 hours into eating healthily. This is quick, smart and most of all lol worthy. Highly recommend checking out this clip and then following Schiavone because more goods are on the way.

• After last week’s ho-hum outing, SNL came back swinging this week with host Simu Liu at the helm. Even a recurring sketch that makes me groan (more on that later) took it to the next level. There was a lot to like here and I’ll run down the hits in order of quality here:

Home runs

Republican or Not: This is something I never say- I wouldn’t mind this brilliant, ambiguous game show coming back three or four times a season. The maybe Republicans say blanket statements like “Facebook is evil” and the contestants have to guess whether this is a Liberal or Conservative statement. Satire at its finest.

Simu and Bowen: A fantastic friendly competition between the host and cast member for “First Asian ___” that starts realistically and is funny enough on its own before going in an absurd direction that’s so goofy you can’t help but love it.

Jeanine Pirro Cold Open: The show stepped it up after a messy hodgepodge of a cold open last week taking on the heavy Kyle Rittenhouse case where his attorney tried to downplay his murder calling it a “gadoinking” from a teen who was “just defending a parking lot in a town that wasn’t his.” Then, James Austin Johnson comes in as Trump and puts a variation on his already iconic 60-second rundown of topics by inputting what he wanted to talk about in a word search. While I hate to see the Fox News bumper onscreen, the show hit the station and their POV hard this go-round.

Dog Head Man: The loopiest, silliest sketch of the night starts as straight-faced as it can before its big reveal that the new military invention to revolutionize combat is a man...with a dog head. Questions abound and the actual golden retriever with the human body predictably misbehaved. Love when the show takes advantage of its live status.

Triples

Weekend Update: Jost and Che got groans from jokes that went a bit too far for this sensitive crowd; I loved the line about the social media platform “Gettr” which is what their users say when women walk alone. Kyle Mooney as Baby Yoda started slowly but the reveal that he was dating the mom from the Berenstain Bears was a sly reference to Pete Davidson dating Kim K. Aidy as Mother Earth took a minute to kick in as well but the cry to arms that people and corporations start taking the environment seriously is something I don’t mind the show making earnest proclamations about even if they’re preaching to the choir.

Simu Liu monologue: A winning origin story that felt like a great human interest introduction to the Marvel star. Not sure if he really tweeted at Marvel years before he got cast but I didn’t mind- it was a winning tale about his days as a struggling actor working as a birthday party entertainer which I dabbled in as a college freshman. I’m a new fan of Liu’s.

Doubles

Target Thanksgiving Ad: These holiday-themed “ads” about the pitfalls of family getting together are becoming a tried and true SNL staple; this one was was especially well-done. The price of products ruined by kids was especially smart as were the noise cancelling headphones for when the grandfather starts spouting off political opinions and football for the uncle that takes the game way too seriously. The only reason this wasn’t a true home run is because they do this so often- it’s just a well-oiled machine.

Thanksgiving Baking Championship: The recurring sketch that I thought I was tired of but the three cakes on display were so weird and not focused on genitalia that I loved this one. Letting the perfectly designed cake lose and not be the focus of the game here was a smart touch.

Walking in Staten: A parody of “Walkin’ In Memphis” for Staten Island feels like something a local radio station would do but getting Marc Cohn and Method Man push this into such an 

enjoyable level that I elevate it to a double just based on the odd grouping alone.

911: A textbook off-the-wall five-to-one bit where flat-talking intellectuals call into 911 believing they’re dead after taking edibles. Relatable, dumb and just brief enough to not wear out its welcome. The heighten with Kenan hiding under the table believing he was dead sold this quiet premise beautifully.

Singles

Karaoke All-Stars: This sketch started out as a train wreck nightmare parodying Southern karaoke singers before it became a bit more universal and closed super strong with the classic “I don’t want to sing” person who ends up knocking “I Will Always Love You” out of the park. Although it evoked the Kristen Wiig “Don’t make me sing” character, I’ll give it a pass for being a showstopping finale to the award show format rather than the sketch’s only joke.

As my boy Porky Pig might say, that’s all folks.

Hope you have a happy early turkey, pie and “so how’s comedy going for you” day for all those who celebrate this coming Thursday

Comedy Stray Notes November 15, 2021

• Anna and I moved to Sunnyside, Queens on October 1. Before that, I’d been wanting to make a sketch about a realtor showing an open house for months. I had location after location fall through. Then, all of a sudden, on October 1, we moved into a “location.” Anna was kind enough to let us put moving in aside for a day and film. So, I enlisted the talents of Anna, Deno DeMartino, Christiana Jackson and Andrew Durso to make this three-page script a reality. They all showed, were hilarious and somehow everything went according to plan. The only hiccup was when our new neighbor got locked out of her place while we were filming so she came in and watched for a bit but otherwise it was smooth sailing.

Now, I’m not going to spoil what this three-minute “Open House” sketch is about since I think it’s really funny and you should go in as blindly as you can but I will say the original inspiration before I put pen to paper here was a very “I Think You Should Leave” premise about a Tim Robinson-type seeing a toy laying in the bedroom on an apartment tour and becomes obsessed with it being included if he ends up renting the place. I promise this sketch is better than that concept.

Before I move on, I wanted to thank Barak Ziv for the slick animated logo that opens the sketch. Without it, this short vid is missing a bit of extra oomph. Also, I wanted to point out a valuable tip I learned while editing this sketch in Adobe Premiere that may be common sense to others. There’s an audio filter called “DeNoise” that allows editors to remove background A/C sounds. It’s not perfect but the audio quality in this sketch improved tenfold because of it. Easy fix, highly recommended.

OK, that’s it. Here’s “Open House.” I think you’ll like it.

• Did a spur-of-the-moment spot on Daniel Perafan and Stephen Campbell’s Last Call Comedy show at Bridge and Tunnel in Ridgewood. In my eight years in NY, I’d never been to that Brooklyn neighborhood, so I got to do that thing where I feel like a tourist in a new neighborhood completely lost taking in my surroundings. Walked into the welcoming bar with dozen-plus original homebrews and felt at home right away. The bartender was a comic on the show and gave me a generous pour. I saw familiar faces Jon Schuta and Brandon Garner (both of whom had excellent sets and should be booked on your shows if you’re reading this and have that ability). All of a sudden, it felt like 2019 again. The crowd was generous, the comics were top-notch, the circumstances were ideal. 

As for me, my set was fine. Started slow with a riff I didn’t quite believe in but came around. Whoa! I was doing well again for the first time in what felt like years. Then, I lost the room. I could hear people talking in the back and like any comic, I prefer to bomb in silence rather than compete with conversation. Somehow, I improbably won the crowd back with a tag at the end of my set I thought of at the moment. Not a wonderful performance on my end, but a hell of a show. Would definitely recommend hanging if you’re reading and haven’t been.

Plus, the nearby Bushwick Taco Company is so good and fast that it’s worth the trip to the neighborhood alone.

• For the past two years, every single weekday at noon, I would write two jokes as part of ComedyWire’s $50 daily contests where you could win money for coming up with punchlines to their prompts. Unfortunately, that is no more. This week, ComedyWire ended the long-running daily competition. I should have seen the writing on the wall since the second to last joke subject was “Signs the end is near.” My takes were “The credits start rolling” and “Your parents say, ‘We think it’s time you get your own place.’” The final setup was “Worst ways to say goodbye” and I entered “The Irish way” and “Getting canceled.” None of these jokes even came close to winning but I still loved coming up with them. Kudos to Nick Jack Pappas and the ComedyWire team, you somehow made weekdays at noon exciting. 

• You really should see Alex Payne live before he explodes onto the mainstream. As a longtime fan of my friend who would effortlessly close out bar shows back in the day, I now know what’s he fully capable of after seeing his one-man storytelling hour “Home Stories.” Although it’s intricately executed weaving through stories of family members and his innermost thoughts, Alex somehow gave the performance a vulnerable, no-frills style that gave it the appearance of the best kind of stand-up rather than the ostentatious showmanship that is usually associated with one-man shows.

No need to give away the jokes before you see this one live or on Netflix in a few years but know that this is a heavy performance with the light touch of a master. Alex opens the set saying, “I never talk like this” and then dives into his grandfather’s multiple identities, gang wars, what his father thinks King Kong really stands for, his grandmother’s mental illness, the Rodney King riots, an obsession with fame, the neverending news cycle, police brutality, the Holocaust. Plus, there was a mean Mickey and Goofy impression mixed in there. I’m barely scratching the surface here. He does a lot. 

Give Alex a topic- he’ll come at it with an insightful angle that will make you recontextualize something you thought you knew.

• Best thing I saw on Instagram this week was a clip of Connor Dixon’s stand-up. In it, he describes the weirdest haircut experience he’s ever had. The two-minute story is equal parts hilarious and beguiling. I couldn’t even believe this happened yet somehow it seems entirely real. Give it a watch and follow Connor- he’s consistently bringing the goods.

• This week, I finished two Apple TV shows, saw a movie in the theaters, listened to a podcast and caught SNL. I’d love to keep this brief but you know me. Here goes.

“Physical” (2021): This new Apple TV offering is the anti-“Ted Lasso.” It’s a feel-bad comedy with a dynamite 80s soundtrack. That doesn’t mean it’s bad though. In fact, it’s quite insightful and provides a lived-in snapshot of upper middle class 1980s SoCal. Starring Rose Byrne as burnt-out, self-loathing housewife Sheila Rubin, the pilot begins with her at a low point as we live in her head hearing her inner monologue. She cant’ stand herself, has an obsession with food and is missing a reason for being. Once she’s exposed to an aerobics class at the mall though, she finds her purpose even going so far as to become a teacher. Once she does, she dispenses wisdom like “The only one that can change your self-image is you!” Then, after class, she’s paid peanuts. Somehow, this small human drama turns into a small-scale “Breaking Bad” type narrative for this fractured, intriguing protagonist over the course of its ten episodes.

On the other side of the coin, her toxic, ex-hippy husband Danny (skillfully underplayed by Rory Scovel) has been let go from his position as professor at a local university. Sheila urges him to run for office using water conservation as his platform. They even come up with the great slogan “Save the Wave.” These two storylines guide the season and expose some harsh truths like- men don’t see what’s really going on in women’s lives, politicians can be ungrateful hypocrites and the dream of 1960s liberalism had become a joke by the 80s.

Side characters are given dramatic arcs- a crumbling marriage is salvaged in a fascinating way, a carefree surfer faces a truly debilitating setback, parents are absent, offscreen characters lose their jobs at the hands of greedy leads on the show. One great tragicomic bit built into an episode had all the characters scrambling for money for different reasons all at the same time. Every time I thought the show painted itself into a corner it couldn’t get out of, it somehow washed itself free. The show goes more real, deeper, and sadder than most dramedies while still mining humor out of its very human characters. “Physical” goes down easy; IT’S “FEEL BAD’ COMFORT FOOD (Streaming on Apple TV).

“Schmigadoon” (2021): This hit squarely in the middle of mine and Anna’s Venn Diagram of interests: comedy veterans Keegan Michael Key and Cecily Strong in the leads supported by Martin Short and Fred Armisen with writing by Julie Klausner and Bowen Yang for me; all things musical for her. Somehow, I didn’t quite jibe with this show though. Key and Strong play against type as buttoned-down doctors on a romantic trip gone wrong that get lost and end up in a town that is essentially a 1940s classic Hollywood musical. Rather than embracing it, Key plays the post-modern cynical type complaining about the singing every step of the way ignoring his hammy impulses (I think Jordan Peele would have been far more well-suited for this role), and Strong dials it down from her SNL character work quite a bit as well.  There’s no real reason for this universe to exist other than to rekindle the relationship of this romantically lost couple and comment on conservative, small towns.

However, that’s not to say the show isn’t fun in places.  Kristin Chenoweth and her “Mothers Against the Future” consistently cracked me up. Plus, a few unbroken sequences where she sang elaborate numbers blew me away. The Technicolor town’s set design was Emmy-worthy. A storyline where Key ends up dating a minor by accident plays out like a funny fable. Every episode begins with a bit of back story from the Key/Strong relationship back in New York and each never failed to make me laugh- one where a friend of theirs gets naked while performing in a play they immediately walked out on was a standout.

Still, the cheeriness and the on-the-nose songs often left me unamused and bored. I hate to sound so stiff and yes I know it’s parodying a genre I don’t know all that well but “Schmigadoon” suffered from a bit of “Good Place-itis,” where it’s so wrapped up in its own world, THAT THOSE WHO  AREN’T THAT INTO IT, LIKE ME, TUNE OUT (Streaming on Apple TV).

“Last Night In Soho” (2021): Edgar Wright is 100% one of the greatest living comedy directors. Easy. However, this foray into horror, shows that maybe he should stick to what he does best. This U.K.-based suspenseful flick tells the story of Ellie, a fashion student who has visions of her deceased mother. She can’t seem to kick it with the cool girls in the dorm (the evil roommate Jocasta played with venom by Synnove Karlsen makes Ellie’s mom’s suicide about her) so she moves to a nearby flat and begins to have visions of a 1960s socialite/singer Sandie that seems to mirror reality. This all really happened (in the movie that is). Ellie sets out to solve her murder. Cool plot. I’m totally on board. Plus, the 60s are brought to life with true panache. There are smart lines of dialogue like “That’s the least I could do for you?” “What’s the most?” Plenty of twists. Topsy-turvy dance sequences. A truly ace soundtrack.

Somehow, though, 99% of this movie is completely serious and missing the tongue-in-cheek tone that Wright is known for. 

All that being said, I will admit I didn’t even come up with this negative opinion on my own. When it was over, I thought this film was fine, serviceable, OK. However, my friend tore into it claiming it was all style over substance. Yeah, more than anything this movie is a pastiche of everything Wright loves which isn’t a problem- great artists steal- it just was missing the love back from Wright in return. Even with its dark subject matter, a bit of humor would have saved the day. FOR WRIGHT COMPLETISTS ONLY (Still in theaters).

WTF with Ricky Velez: I always listen to episodes of Maron where he talks to the younger generation of comics who have spent the majority of their career listening to the podcast. They’ve got something to prove. In this episode with Ricky Velez, Velez mentions that he met Maron once before but of course, Maron didn’t remember him. Man, I love comedy power move stuff like that. The disappointment Velez feels here next to Maron’s indifference is what podcasts are all about. So much drama in a moment. There’s a couple of great moments here too where they bond over their love-hate relationship with New York’s Broadway Comedy Club and Velez’s family tragedies. Not a must-listen but a solid 7/10 WTF.

SNL with Jonathan Majors: Rarely when watching SNL do I forget who’s hosting. That happened this week during this misfire of an episode. After an unbelievable hot streak, the variety show was due for a dud. There were occasional inspired moments here but shows like this make me wonder why they release the cut sketches to the public when they could just save them for weak outings. Anyhow, here are some slapdash thoughts on each sketch ranked from home runs to strikeouts:

Home runs:

Man Park: Perfect pre-tape about how hard it is for men in relationships to find friends. Hit close to home and made me laugh on re-watch.

Triples:

Weekend Update: Strong jokes comparing Kyle Rittenhouse to Brett Kavanaugh and how long a  Steve Bannon life sentence did it for me but the real standouts were Sarah Sherman’s Colin Jost callouts and Aristotle Athari’s Laughingtosh 3000.

Doubles:

Please Don’t Destroy: You won’t find a bigger fan of the guys than me but by ditching minimalism and going big with “Three Sad Virgins,” their small charms were diminished. 

Strange Kid Tales: Admire the performances they got out of kids here with their creepy tales but the joke that Kenan is freaked out by these stories got tiresome after a bit.

Broadway Benefit: Although this was a bit lifeless there was enough loopy, catty dialogue from Cecily Strong and Bowen Yang to keep me on board.

Singles:

March of the Suitors: Started slowly as a medieval Chloe Fineman looked for a partner; things picked up when Ego Nwodim had her best moment on the show yet scolding Jonathan Majors for going after Fineman while being married to her.

Audacity in Advertising: Something about watching SNL actors play Flo and Jake from State Farm is too much of putting a hat on a hat for me; some fun fake ads though and a nice jab at Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial elevate this above a strikeout.

Strikeouts:

Pastor Announcement: A pastor and his wife searching for new partners? A bit similar to March of the Suitors. This one just felt too unrealistic and bizarre to land. Plus, they did that comedy thing where they list all the dating apps. Come on, SNL. You’re better than that.

Ted Cruz Cold Open: Whenever they overstuff cold opens with EVERYTHING in the news, it’s hard for the wheels to spin. Also, they need a real impressionist to imitate Joe Rogan.

Jonathan Majors monologue: Majors seems great and has quite a life story but none of the jokes really did anything special. Kinda wish we got a song & dance number or crowd Q & A.

Bone, Thugs and Harmony: I wanted to like this so bad. It just never really went anywhere though. Went to crazy town- wish we learned more about the characters than the bones.

Final quick hits:

-There’s a fun video on Twitter making the rounds of the new SNL cast members (James Austin Johnson, Sarah Sherman and Aristotle Athari) sitting around answering questions about getting the call to be on the show and their auditions. The three are very funny together and the most exciting grouping of new Not Ready for Primetime Players in years. Good, short watch.

- Fred Armisen appeared on Fallon a little over a week ago strumming his guitar to demonstrate how music evolved from the early 70s to 2000s. He nails the sound and makes up clever nonsense lyrics that demonstrate that it doesn’t matter what you say- if a song rocks, a song rocks. It’s funny and full of catchy riffs. Great way to spend five minutes.

Stay tuned for next week. Got an interesting story ready to go. 

I swear, it’s interesting.

OK. Maybe not that interesting but I like it

Comedy Stray Notes November 8, 2021

• Lotteries, sweepstakes, and surveys always seem to evade me. In my lifetime, I’ve probably filled out 100 “you could win $100 from answering this series of questions” for businesses but have never seen anything from it. Yet, I keep trying.

Finally, it paid off this past week. “The Book of Mormon” held a contest for fans of the show to see their first show back on Broadway. All you had to do was write a paragraph about your “Mission Partner,” throw their hashtag “Mission Partner” on social media, and then you were in the mix. Having never seen the show, I hungrily applied writing a short ode to my mission partner in life, Anna Paone.

A week or so later, I received an email in my “Promotions Folder” that I nearly missed when I was mass deleting spammy-looking messages. Thankfully, I opened it. We had tickets. Free tickets to see what critics all call “the funniest musical of all time” (that was Entertainment Weekly who gave it that title).

On the night of the show, we arrived and found out ALL fans got in for free that night. Some were diehard fanatics dressed as missionaries and others like us didn’t get the memo and just wore slacks and a dress shirt like my momma taught me. We sat in our very limited legroom seats at the Eugene O’Neill Theater and just before the show began, our crowd was treated to a surprise- Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez came out to thank the audience for coming and let us know the show was being filmed. “Don’t mind the cameras,” they said.

With that, the room got dark, a spotlight shone on a little golden cherub statuette above the stage playing the bugle and it rotated. The show was underway. Immediately, it was apparent why this show is so beloved. The opening number (following a super quick Mormon 101 history) features a dozen or so missionaries overlapping their doorbell pitches while introducing our conventional protagonist Elder Price and his n’er do well co-star Elder Cunningham crescendoing into a sustained chorus of voices harmonizing. This led to one of the longest applause breaks I’ve ever heard anywhere. If you let the fans into Broadway for free, they’ll be grateful.

After the long clap, I could feel the actor’s joy as we all kept clapping as they seemed to break character and let out real smiles. The rest of the show maintained this cathartic energy. In a musical about a notoriously repressed culture (one of the best numbers is called “Turn It Off” about how one should bury their most awful thoughts), there was so much fun to be had. The story centers itself around the two aforementioned missionaries- Price, the responsible one who studied and dreams of preaching Joseph Smith’s gospel in Orlando and Cunningham, the lying “follower” one who never even read the Book of Mormon- and their subsequent trip to spread the good word in Uganda. There, they realize how useless they are until they aren’t. And then they are. And then the devil is there. And then he’s not. I’ll keep this spoiler-free but it’s all a very clever satire chipping away at what religion really is and what it can be.

More than anything, “The Book of Mormon” is a crowd-pleaser. With “South Park”-level shock humor, the play effectively mixes the sacred and profane to create an elaborate comedy cocktail. For example, when the Ugandans are upset with their lives (they later dream of Salt Lake City as a place similar to Heaven), they sing a cheerful song decrying God; the Mormons sing along thinking it’s their version of “Hakuna Matata” until they end up shocked to learn they’re flipping off the Lord. 

I’d wager the biggest laughs are mined from the elaborate and cheery choreography. Who knew stage direction could be so funny? At one point, Elder Price sings a song about how their mission could benefit “mostly me” and the curtains move around Cunningham eventually all but obscuring him while he tries to get in on the action. You know how when you see a great improv show and you leave confused at how what you saw was so impressive and changed your notions of what comedy can do (only me?)? That’s how I felt after seeing this show.

All that being said, this barely scratches the surface of what made this play so great (ok, it’s a bit problematic too in places) but if you’re in New York and haven’t seen the play, get tickets. Buy them months in advance because they’re not crazy pricey then. You’ll sit in a seat with limited legroom but won’t even mind. The reviews really aren’t as hyperbolic as they sound- the play really is that great. That’s all.

• OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s a much more truncated assessment of everything else somewhat related to the business of funny from the week.

- I recently started writing for NJ.com as an Entertainment and Experiences Reporter. My beat is live events like concerts, comedy, Broadway and the occasional wrestling story. Oftentimes, I have to pinch myself on assignments because I can’t believe I’m doing them for work. Most notably, a few weeks ago, I interviewed Marlon Wayans about his upcoming show in New Jersey that was supposed to take place on November 5 but has since been postponed. This was my first ever professional interview with a well-known comic figure and although our conversation only lasted about eight minutes, Wayans gave me all the sound bites necessary for a great story. In fact, he gave me more than I needed. I ended up cutting his great line about how he loves all of his sisters equally even if they choked him out and how he picked DC Ervin to open for him because he’s so good and makes Wayans have to elevate his game. To see what DID make the short profile, the link is in the comments.

- Last Monday, the day after Halloween, I performed on Dan Fitzpatrick’s Divine Monday show at E’s Bar on the Upper West Side right after eating a crispy rice salad from Sweetgreen. The show was even better than that exceptional bowl of leafy greens. Dan hosted in costume as Indiana Jones and booked a monster lineup featuring Emily Winter, Steven Rogers, Matt Benjamin, and Tom Achilles. If I’m being completely honest with myself, I was easily the weak link that night. This mostly has to do with the fact that I haven’t been hitting the stage in the same way that I used to and a lot of jokes trailed off without a clear punch to accentuate them at the end. That’s completely alright though- the hit to miss ratio wasn’t THAT bad (although there were major whiffs)- it was more just that the rest of the comics had really done their homework and came prepared with great material and warm stage presence. No complaints here and I’m grateful for the stage time. Also, huge shout out to my dudes Barak Ziv and Roberto Tobar for coming by- always good to see friends in E’s back room.

- My pal Andrew Tavin staged his one-man show “That’s so Tavin” (yup, it rhymes with “Raven”) twice before the pandemic. His third performance was set for March 14, 2020 and he told the crowd at his show last night, “When the NBA got canceled, I thought my show probably wouldn’t happen. Because usually, they do the NBA every year.” Now after a prolonged hiatus, the world finally gets to see what we missed so long ago. It was worth the wait. In a show that runs just over an hour, Andrew pulled off the impossible- a variety show featuring just one guy (that one guy would be Tavin). He does it all: there’s stand-up where Andrew introduces himself multiple times, he sings segue tunes while changing costumes backstage and plays characters like “tour guide with a dark past,” sleazy financial advisor, and a children’s book author with an incredible twist on a Shel Silverstein classic. There’s highly specific trivia about his past, animated films and a series of movies all with the same title. Finally, it all leads to a surprising finale playing with audience expectations that Andrew set up so perfectly. Once again, no need to spoil. This one’s better to see with your own eyes.

- Michael Harrison’s “Character Debates” podcast has a brilliant conceit: let’s let comics play fictional folks and then duel on a topic they’re well-versed in. It’s a well-oiled joke machine. This week, I listened to their 35-minute episode “What’s the best fad diet?” and found myself astonished at just how quickly Rebecca Kaplan’s vegan dominatrix character and Drew Dunn’s cannibal came up with practical yet funny arguments for why Jake Vevera’s undecided slob should adopt their diet of choice. I was floored by on-the-spot lines like Rebecca’s “the only animal I harm are the men I dominate” and “I’ve also eaten some of my sexual partners but they were carrots.” Those are stage-ready funny. Debating for the consumption of people, Dunn cleverly argued “You are what you eat” and made sure to clarify that he always gets consent from whomever he scarfs down. On the fly, he improvised the rebuttal, “Lettuce is for the ground- if you have to water it, you shouldn’t be eating it.” Poetry in motion. Also, I learned gelatin is made from animal collagen. I sort of knew that but these characters hammered it home for me. Good stuff. Check that link out.

- Musical comedy is 100x harder than “comedy-comedy.” It requires the comic to not only be funny but also carry a tune. Yet, somehow Dylan Adler knocks tosses off timely song parodies with such ease that it makes me wonder why he isn’t already one of the biggest stars in the game. This week, he dropped his “Lin-Manuel Miranda auditioning for “Wicked” video, and even though I’ve never seen “Wicked,” it was so funny, it didn’t even matter. His Lin is pitch-perfect nailing the warbly, halfway confident singing voice followed by the prideful tossed-off rap style the “Hamilton” star is known for. This video, clocking in at less than a minute is more than worth your time. It’s so funny, fast and well-done, you’ll be watching on repeat.

- Belton Delaine-Facey has been churning out great, smart sketches under the radar for far too long. That changes now. His latest three-minute video, about a casual customer turning disgruntled upon learning that returning his frisbee will be much more difficult than he anticipated, is fantastic. The agent says, “You ordered an environmentally-friendly product; I want you to know just how much your return HURTS the environment.” This line stings with 2021 guilt; the repetition of “environment” hammers it home. From there, the customer and representative argue semantics over a product that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $10. It’s hilarious and then twists and turns in ways your typical sketch doesn’t. I’d highly recommend watching and then following Belton. There’s more good stuff like this where that came from.

• Where I saw the entertainment I consumed this week: a movie theater and a couch. Here’s a recap of each.

“The French Dispatch” (2021): Wes Anderson’s tenth film held out its release for the entirety of the pandemic (did the pandemic end? I’m not sure). I was a bit annoyed in 2020; I wanted to see this movie and Wes was depriving us of that. We didn’t know when theaters would re-open and this was easily one of my most anticipated. Well, having patiently waited, I can safely say, Anderson, made the right choice holding off to release this exclusively in theaters because it really has to be seen on the big screen to appreciate his exquisitely framed compositions. 

By even revealing how this movie is structured feels like I’m giving too much away but I’ll do my best (the mildest of spoilers ahead): “The French Dispatch” is the story of a mid-20th-century periodical a la The New Yorker told in magazine format. It’s an idea so good, I’m kicking myself for never having thought of it. There’s an obituary, travel companion piece around the city and three features that turn this one movie into five disparate short films all told with their own distinct flavor that’s somehow equal parts midwestern and French all at once. Packed to the gills with an eye-popping cast (the movie poster is basically a modern-day Sgt. Pepper’s with every character actor you love like Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Timothee Chalamet, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban, Benicio Del Toro, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand and standout Jeffrey Wright to name just a few), the real star is still Wes’ style and sense of humor which he doesn’t care if you like or not because it’s going to be front and center no matter what. The camera whips and glides showing off visual gags like a town full of cats on roofs, then a freeze-frame catching a fight in mid-action. This is speculation but I have to imagine each of these delicately constructed images took a day to compose. There’s hardly a single close-up or standard frame and if there is, it does something inventive like switch the color palette from black and white to color to show off one’s eyes. Wes even pulls a “Kill Bill” and briefly switches to animation at one point because the story appeared as an illustration in the magazine. Overall, it’s funny and sad and has one of the most compelling lines of dialogue I’ve heard all year about what poison tastes like that ends up being picked over by Wright and Murray.

Run, don’t walk to the theater for this one. “The French Dispatch” must be seen on a big screen. It will renew your faith in the movies. I haven’t wanted to see a movie again as soon as it ended in years (the last one was “Holy Motors”). As soon as the lights came up, I knew I had to see this again. It’s that good.

-Saturday Night Live was hosted by Kieran Culkin this weekend and once again maintained its steady pace of A-/B+ level content. Culkin was an assured host playing it straight when needed and going willingly goofy in my favorite sketch of the night. While I don’t think anyone will remember this show for much other than the debut of James Austin Johnson’s free-associating Trump, there’s quite a bit of solid, game-heavy sketch that can be appreciated. As always, here’s a quick rundown of sketches from grand slams all the way down to strikeouts (yes, I have a weakness for baseball metaphors):

Grand slams:

Rapping weatherman: If that sounds dumb, it certainly was. The sketch starts with a bit of goofiness that makes you groan until it kicks into high gear and escalates into a rare piece of comedy with genuine high stakes while something truly ridiculous is happening. Loved everything about this one.

Judge Jeanine Pirro featuring Aaron Rodgers, Glenn Youngkin, a parent angry with critical race theory AND Donald Trump: Sharply written catching that Rodgers was almost the host of “Jeopardy!” this year and then letting Trump run his mouth at the end made for the most lively political moment the show’s had in ages.

Home runs:

Canceling Spectrum: As someone who has made sketches about customer service and appreciates them (see Belton’s sketch above), I was skeptical that this sketch could surprise me. Somehow, they went places I’d never even dreamed of bringing in the entire cast for a rare ensemble piece that built and built and built. 

Bathroom Small Talk: Perfect observation about how uncomfortable the men’s room is. There’s a strange obligation to make small talk and it never comes out right.

Triples:

“Angie” by Please Dont’ Destroy: The guys try to smooth things over with John Higgins’ ex but only make things worse. Not their best but the speed and all over the place nature of the jokes made it go down smooth.

Doubles:

The jockey: For a second, I thought this sketch was going to be about a horse riding a horse after a jockey is no longer able to ride. Nope. The actual direction the sketch goes in is stranger, sillier and more musical than I would have ever anticipated. Really does a great job switching genre halfway through too.

Kieran Culkin’s monologue: Lightweight, self-deprecating with a dose of nostalgia for when Culkin guested on the show at nine years old when his brother Macauly hosted and he was onstage for the goodnights. A great way to set up the goodbyes at the episode’s close.

The Heist: Chris Redd has settled into a niche with these pre-tapes that feature elaborate set-ups that deflate and then balloon with his incompetence becoming the focus. This one was similar to his naive drug dealer and then out of his element soldier but fun nonetheless.

Weekend Update: Loved quite a few jokes (the one about a high school football team winning 106-0 was a favorite) but the desk pieces from Kenan as Ice Cube and Cecily Strong as a clown who had an abortion didn’t quite strike a chord with me. Both were heavy and walked the tightrope line of silly and dark but neither made me laugh.

Singles:

The Dionne Warwick Show: A bit long but punctuated by Ego Nwodim’s unimpressed Warwick host until she meets her favorite guest of all.

• Well, that’s it for me. I woke up at 6:05 to write this on a Monday morning. I think it was worth it.

Comedy Stray Notes October 31, 2021

• For Halloween, Anna and I couples costumed it up and went as Jimmy McGill (Saul Goodman, if you’re an amateur) and Kim Wexler. No one guessed it right- I blame the $18 wig. A bartender thought I was supposed to be Kenneth from “30 Rock.” I see that.

• Now for real, good old-fashioned notesy notes. Here’s an appreciation of all the things I read, saw and participated in this week.

- For a measly $5, I read a lively, fresh ebook dripping with cynicism, insight into the modern American male and pointed cultural criticism. That electronic book is Davidson Boswell’s “Boredom” which I sped right through. “Boredom” is the story of Jacob, an unfeeling Manhattan office drone who finds himself becoming so obsessed with the alt-right podcasts he loves that he ends up heading to a rally in North Carolina where what can go wrong, does go wrong.

The 100-page novella reads like if “Catcher in the Rye” was written by a comic with sharply realized observations that come with punchlines. One of my favorites was about what “up and coming” really means when realtors describe neighborhoods. I’ll let you discover it on your own. The book pounces on a number of niche targets like this, taking aim at indifferent middle managers, Craigslist roommates and most importantly how podcasts can have lasting effects on our fragile minds. It’s dark and an of-the-moment cautionary tale that you have to read. 

Buy it. You know you want to.

- Tucked away in the back corner of an Upper West Side watering hole is one of the best up-and-coming bar shows in Manhattan. The place is E’s Bar and the show is Dan Fitzpatrick’s weekly Stand Up Comedy Night. At last Monday’s edition, one side of the room was populated by audience members that looked like they were in middle school and the other side was made up of older folks game for audience participation. All comics on the lineup pulled off the difficult feat of connecting with both demographics and finding the universal. The all-star lineup, made up of Drew Drevyanko, Kendall Farrell, Chris Calogero, Trent Mabry and Jay Jurden, made Dan look like a genius for booking these heavy hitters. Highly recommend adding this show to your rotation of hangs if you’re in the City.

Also, I’m on the show on Monday, November 1 if you want to see the rough material I’ve been working on.

- My good friend Clayton Porter writes the best short stories about basketball. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re poignant and often they’re a mixture of both. However, for Halloween, Clayton left his comfort zone and wrote an engrossing piece of action/horror titled “Now You Know.” Medium calls it a 15-minute read but by the time you’re done with this “A Quiet Place”-esque short, you’ll feel like only a minute passed. Written with a restrained yet pulsing first-person voice from the perspective of a father who must protect his family and their home from unknown “creatures,” the action jumps off the page. Written fight scenes don’t often resonate but when you have passages like:

“Panicked, I took off running down the hallway towards our bedrooms, the creature hissing on my heels. As I made it to the master bedroom I quickly closed the door and pressed my body against it. I did so in time to absorb the first blow of the beast ramming the wood. The hinges, frame and myself all shook.”

Hell yes. That’s just a taste too. Read this story.

- Hatched is one of my favorite YouTube channels. The regularity in which they put out quality sketches is astounding and honestly awe-inspiring. This week, their “I've Been Acquired by a Fortune 500 Company” directed by Matt Somerstein hit that gold standard once again. Based on the title alone, the three-minute sketch has a simple yet unique concept that they predictably took to exciting and surprising places as soon as the Vice President of Acquisitions for Arco Holdings enters a man’s apartment with his assistant. The justification for the bit and eventual conclusion is eerily prescient. This is satire at its finest ripping worthless Millennials and soulless corporations a new one.

- In 2014ish, I recall doing an open mic at Pioneer’s Bar in Manhattan. I always liked the bar as a bar but the actual mic was not great. Loud and none of my jokes landed. For the past seven years, I have gone back many times but avoided doing comedy there to avoid another fat bomb. Well, this week, I bucked my close-mindedness and went back for Fluke Human’s Sunday 2 p.m. mic. I’m happy to report this was a great decision. With the mic starting so early, a) just a few comics showed so everyone got to do seven minutes and b) there weren’t a ton of patrons sullying the sound so everyone performed free of distraction. I had a great time, laughed a lot and most importantly, added a new mic to my weekly rolodex of places I can try new stuff out at. Pioneers, now you not only rule as a bar but also a mic venue. Cheers.

• 2021 has had a number of sitcoms elevate the form. Here are glowing reviews of two whose seasons I just completed.

- “The Other Two” seemed like it was destined to be a one-season wonder on Comedy Central. I’ve seen it time and again- a hysterical sitcom gets dumped after a glorious ten-episode run and audiences wonder what could have been.

Thankfully, HBO Max rescued the show allowing “The Other Two” to go much dirtier this second season. The show, run by former SNL head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, follows Cary and Brooke, who are repeatedly overshadowed by their Justin Bieber surrogate younger brother Chase Dreams in Season One; in Season two, their mom Pat (Molly Shannon) becomes Rachael Ray-level famous and the season centers around her success. 

That’s not what makes the show great though. It’s the one-of-a-kind characters and the behavioral jokes that accompany each of them. Pat says yes to any job like hosting the game show “Tic Tac Toe” (a brilliant send up of dumb game shows)  which culminates in a grounded finale that’s equal parts funny and dramatic. Cary is desperate for acclaim and this leads him to moonlighting as a nurse at a hospital which upsets real patients and keeps getting paid off throughout the season. Brooke celebrates being named on a “30 Under 30” list until she realizes that no one important actually cares about these things. Best of all, Pat’s boyfriend and manager Streeter (Ken freaking Marino) does everything he can to insert himself into any situation. Then, there’s Cary’s boyfriend Jess, an AVClub “West Wing” episode recapper who cries because he loves Cary so much. Each character is desperate in their own sad way and it propels the season’s trajectory.

There’s still so much more to like. A farcical episode where guests on Pat’s shows are mistaken for bigots. Another poking holes at new age celebrity religions turning faith into a hashtag. Cary getting so into Cameo that he tracks down his fans he records birthday messages for and drinks with them.

Chock full of humanity while also skewering the vapidity of fame, this show couldn’t be a breezier and more substantive watch. It’s a weightier “30 Rock” for 2021.

- As much as I love “The Other Two,” pound for pound, the most fun show on the air at the moment is “What We Do In the Shadows” and its third season is a damn masterpiece. Every time I think a mockumentary based on a movie about vampires has painted itself into a corner with its limited premise, they zag where I expect them to zig.

If you haven’t seen the program, I’ll catch you up. Vampires Laszlo, Nadja and Nandor live in a gothic Staten Island mansion with Nandor’s “familiar” Guillermo and “energy vampire Colin Robinson (comedy MVP Mark Proksch embodying a weird cross between Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute). It’s your classic fish out of water as the undead attend Super Bowl parties and city council meetings while lacking a basic understanding of chain emails. They’re not human but they’re flawed and live sort of like us. In season three, “WWDITS” expands its universe while fleshing out its characters. Audiences get a better view of Guillermo’s life and devotion to Nandor which is mostly hinted at in earlier seasons. A flirtation between Nandor and a gym receptionist turns into an exploration of how each character would seduce a crush. There’s even a Bob Seger tribute and extended Donal Logue arc for good measure.

Most impressively, the show somehow finds a way to always pack three (!) compelling storylines into each episode. Some feel light and goofy but at the end of the season, each character’s arc is paid off in ways no one could have seen coming. Well-earned twists mix the supernatural with the mundane culminating in one of the best season finales of any show I’ve ever seen simultaneously wrapping up loose ends while also setting the stage for the next batch of episodes. It’s satisfying, hilarious and in a league of its own. Don’t let a disinterest in vampires fool you; this show is for everyone that loves comedy.

In honor of “What We Do In The Shadows,” I’ll sign off Laszlo style: 

“Bat!”

Comedy Stray Notes October 24, 2021

• I’m a little late to the party but I finally saw the confounding, controversial, and not all that comedic new Dave Chappelle special “The Closer.” To comment on it feels like a losing battle but after witnessing a real-life verbal argument about the hour at a restaurant last week and seeing thinkpiece after thinkpiece litter the internet, I was compelled and had to check it out for myself.

Most of the special places its focus on Chappelle’s point of view on marginalized LGBT groups/white people and while he tells compelling first-person anecdotes (at one point he self-identifies as the GOAT), many of them end up turning into stories that end with messages that generalize an entire group of human beings. Then, in his “closer” to “The Closer,” he tells what may be his most upsetting story ever that makes me angry just thinking about it the way he positions himself in the narrative. However, I’m not interested in discussing Chappelle’s politics- it’s a losing battle. I’m more interested in whether or not the special was funny.

I think the answer is no and sporadically a little bit yes. Although many of his jokes slip into silly/crass material (the repetition of “Space Jews” as a punchline was shockingly bad and below any special’s standards as it feels more like something a comic writes in their notebook, rips up and burns in a fire), there are a few moments of inspired comic madness that harken back to the old Chappelle that we all loved. For every moment of real comedy though, there’s either a slur, uninformed opinion, or goofy wordplay coming soon after. The crowd eats it all up but the whole time, I couldn’t help but think to myself- the fame and power have gotten to the GOAT and he’s forgotten what made him so great in the first place.

Netflix has stood by him in an effort to show solidarity with comedians but this may end up hurting them more in the long run as they have to ask themselves the tough question- do we serve the uncompromising artists or the audience that a special like this could hurt first? Either way, they’re getting the clicks (I’m giving them free publicity here for chrissakes) so I’m sure they’re happy with their decision.

• This was probably my biggest week of doing comedy stuff since before the pandemic. Without further ado, here’s what I do’d:

- For the first time since January (!), I published a profile on my site “A Profile About You.” This piece was about vivacious author/comedian Nikki MacCallum and how she adapted her hilarious and harrowing memoir “Dry Run” into a podcast. I’d love for you to read more about Nikki’s story and listen to the pod but in the meantime, to whet your appetite, here’s a quick excerpt from the profile:

“Since all of the audio was recorded at the height of the pandemic, each actor had a remote at-home mic set up. There were a few Zoom rehearsals for the larger roles but for the most part, actors sent her two to ten takes of each line, and Nikki listened to every single one carefully choosing the interpretations of her words that told the story best. As one might expect, completing a podcast about a marathon is a marathon of a job in and of itself.”

- A show with a thematic lineup of comics on it always carries a little extra pep in its step. The audience is all there not because they love comedy but they love what the comics represent. I certainly felt this energy at Laura High’s “TikTok Famous” show at Carolines. Boasting a lineup made up of TikTok luminaries Dave Columbo, Sarah Hartshorne, Lukas Arnold, Zarna Garg and Laura closing out the show, all proved that while they rule the small, vertical screen, they are masters on the stage as well. Most impressively, Laura ran on stage decked out in a sperm costume and danced like no one was watching. In a city where comics put more emphasis on their material than simply just being their funniest, goofiest self, it was a refreshing change of pace.

Also, of note, new SNL cast member Aristotle Athari dropped by for a ten-minute set. He seemed a bit rusty doing halfhearted crowd work off the top before settling into a groove demonstrating what the SNL talent scouts saw in him. My favorites of his were a story of troll-like sounds his ex made and another about how his joining SNL coincided with his wedding. No need to spoil the bits because hopefully they’re repurposed for the show but it’s definitely one of those great perks of living in New York- you never know who will be working material out on a random Sunday night.

- Speaking of NYC comedy benefits, I attended two back-to-back shows at Ben Lillie’s Caveat for the first time this week. Before I discuss them, I want to use this space to discuss how special and unique this place is as a comedy environment. Not a traditional club, this venue is more of a space where theme and alt shows thrive. Located underground in the Lower East Side, Caveat has a full bar with a legit drink menu, popcorn seasoning station, elaborate lights, and a projector for all your offbeat show needs. It’s the thinking person’s comedy club that doesn’t solely care about two-drink minimums and instead devotes its time to producing brainy, off-the-wall and funny shows.

OK, back to the shows I saw there. The first was Nat Towsen’s weekly that featured a monster lineup featuring David Cross, Janeane Garofalo and Orli Matlow. Towsen got the ball rolling with a tight set that included a fantastic joke about what it’s like to be the guy in the ads before YouTube videos and was followed soon after by Orli who crushed with her re-telling of “Season One of the pandemic.” After Orli, Garofalo dropped “comedy bags” full of notes onstage to open her set. She never got to them going from tangent to tangent being interrupted by ringing phones that sounded like Amber Alerts and riffing, “I may not be great at comedy but I give a hell of a filibuster.” Her set was so all over the place and alive that when David Cross closed, he had to completely reset the room before going into his tricky, edgy, calculated material that included a poignant tale of how he and his wife had to put their dog down. Still, he found time to devote a few minutes to praising Garofalo and her process suggesting he make a documentary about her. She was too shy to take the spotlight though. It’s a shame. 

Show two was Emily Winter’s “Comedians with Ghost Stories.” The show really delivered on its title as four comics Nonye West, Myq Kaplan, Tracy McClendon and Pete Stegtmeyer spun yarns of varying degrees of scary and supernatural while also making sure to pepper jokes in to keep it moving. If this sounds like your thing, Emily has a podcast that shares a name with the show where you can hear said spooky yarns. Anyhow, at this live show, Emily and her co-host Larry Mancini included so much more than just what a podcast provides. There was an opening set devoted to the goofiness of ouija boards by Chris Calogero, a “Wheel of Destiny” (one audience member spun the wheel and got “Do you believe in ghosts?” as their trivia question and they replied, “No,” which was the wrong answer and when they spun again, they got “Do you believe in ghosts” a second time. This time, they figured it out) and a good-old-fashioned pun-based trivia game that gave the show that special live factor.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, after having spent just one night there, I can safely say Caveat is where it’s at.

- Did a mic this week. Yeah, an open mic. It was Gabe Mollica’s Wednesday at Q.E.D. which brought me back to ye olde mic days from pre-March 2020. Due to a stacked schedule, the 15-comic mic had to be completed in just 45 minutes. On paper (or digital like you’re reading), that sounds stupid short but what it really does is create a very efficient, respectful atmosphere for everyone to do their time and get out of there as quickly as possible. As for my set, I’m still working on shaking off the rust and figuring out what I’m doing with stand-up. Some stuff I’ve tried a few times before worked, some fell super flat and some of the set was nonsense. What was the most fun of all though was the end of the mic when three poets closed us out. The final poet gave it everything with vulgar rhymes and had everyone laughing harder than any comic’s set. Sometimes you don’t need setup/punchline jokes to be funny- you just need charisma and a good instinct.

- Listened to Joe Nami’s ballsy “Cancel Joe Nami” podcast for the first time this week and greatly enjoyed his episode on “How to commit insurance fraud.” Yup. He really goes there. Not everyone has the chutzpah to talk about taboo subjects on the air but Joe does and he’ll teach you exactly what you shouldn’t learn how to do step by step.

• In addition to seeing and hearing a lot of live comedy this past week, I also dusted off the old and unused AMC Stubs membership rewards card that had been lying dormant on my phone’s app-filled home screen. Here are the decidedly unfunny movies I saw: 

“The Last Duel” (2021): First of all, Ridley Scott is in his 80s and still making damn good movies. That needs to be applauded. Secondly, this medieval epic is also secretly an excellent commentary on #metoo, neglectful spouses, and might be the frontrunner for my favorite movie of the year. Told in “Rashomon” style with dueling perspectives, “The Last Duel” pits mulleted Matt Damon against Adam Driver who seems to have shown up on set and didn’t change a thing in combat and we’re led to believe this will be your standard knight and squires picture. Yet, screenwriters Ben Affleck, Matt Damon (they’re back, baby), and Nicole Holofcener have tricks up their sleeve shifting the narrative to Damon’s wife played deftly by Jodie Comer who is non-consensually taken advantage of by Driver’s monstrous character (Damon’s no great shakes as the “good guy” either). This is where the story heats up and finds its footing going to great lengths to show viewers that very little has changed between 1386 and the present day when it comes to men believing women. It’s powerful, effective, unforgettable. I WENT INTO THIS KNOWING NOTHING AND NOW I CAN’T STOP RAVING ABOUT IT (See it in theaters while you can).

“No Time To Die” (2021): I’ll admit it, I fell asleep in this movie. Multiple times. Like snapping my head back into action when Anna Paone tapped me to wake me up because I’d missed minutes at a time. I felt bad because I liked what I saw. The opening sequence is downright chilling and seems to be cut from the cloth of an entirely different arthouse horror film. Then, when the story becomes your typical Bond cat and mouse game, that’s when I started dozing off. Sure, the chases, shootouts, and near-drowning scenes are invigorating but anytime Daniel Craig sat down to talk about logistics of how to stop Spectre, Rami Malek’s villain, or a virus, my eyelids got heavy. I can’t give this film a proper analysis because I was barely there for it SO IF YOU’RE NO REAL BOND FAN, YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF NAPPING BEFORE YOU KNOW IT (Still in theaters).

- SNL completed its run of four shows to start the season with 2021’s king of sentimentality Jason Sudeikis. I’m a sucker for former cast member episodes because you know the entire show will center around the host’s past work and this episode completely delivered on that assumed promise. As expected, Sudeikis reprised a few characters and impressions, brought his unmistakable blowhard nonchalance to the proceedings, and gave 150% in every sketch. My only complaint is we didn’t get a Will Forte or Bobby Moynihan cameo or return of the “2 A-Holes” which if I recall was a pretty big recurring sketch back in the mid-aughts.

Anyhow, here’s a super quick ranking of the sketches from those I deem grand slams all the way down to whiffs:

Grand Slams 

N/A

Home Runs

Annie: Clear comedic game, lively performances, lived-in heightening. Excellent

Parent-Teacher Conference: Slow seduction between strangers while a third party helplessly watches; would have given this a grand slam but SNL was called out on Twitter (where else?) by Eric Idle for this sketch being TOO similar to a Monty Python marriage counselor sketch and after checking it out, I’m inclined to agree

Declaration Pitch: Ridiculous historical farce that played dumb very seriously; we need more sketches where the Founding Fathers are bros 

Triples

Sudeikis Monologue: The exact type of inspirational “it’s an honor to be here” monologue that makes this show special; the best part of all though is that Sudeikis considers Gilly to be a legendary character

Mellen: “Ellen” for men would have gotten a grand slam for me if it was a minute shorter; instead they simply ran the perfect, loopy joke into the ground

Doubles

Dueling Bidens Cold Open: A fitting tribute to all the Biden impressions (James Austin Johnson, Sudeikis, Moffatt) from the past few years while quietly skipping Woody Harrelson

Science Room: A slow build that lets Cecily Strong and Mikey Day’s clueless students run wild with irreverent misunderstandings

Weekend Update: No jokes truly stood out to me but Sudeikis’ Devil was a delight explaining all he’s done over the past few years along with a deal he struck up with Jost to marry Scarlett Johannson 

Singles

What’s Up With That: Yes, this is maybe the most well-known recurring character of this millennium but the fact that they do so little “new” with it puts it pretty low on my list. I’d much prefer to see what makes Sudeikis’ hype man character tick rather than this fun but forgettable retread

Casino Proposal: A bit too long and obvious for my liking; Kenan was so weird and lacking in logic though that I bumped it up from a whiff to a single

Whiffs

Men’s underwear: Every season, SNL has a commercial parody about farting or butts. I think it’s an inside joke Lorne has where he’s trolling the audience or maybe he just has a fondness for scatological humor. Either way, this wasn’t for me

Interestingly, supposed equal opportunity offender SNL didn’t touch on either Alec Baldwin’s surprisingly tragic week onset or Chappelle’s special which has been out for weeks making me wonder if the two are such sacred cows for the program that they can’t risk offending them and severing ties with the rich and powerful. Food for thought.

• Finally, I wanted to pay tribute to the recently departed Hans Harris. Hans was my wife Anna’s kind uncle who always was ready to talk “What We Do In The Shadows,” “Goonies” or Dungeons and Dragons at any family gathering. In fact, he even went so far as to play a lengthy three-hour DnD session with us mid-pandemic which was one of the most fun nights of quarantine we had by far. 

Outside of his top-notch pop culture tastes, Hans loved his family more than anything and we all loved him back. He will be more than missed; missed is far too great an understatement.

As silly as it seems to bring this up here in a comedy blog, I do so to draw attention to a memorial fund in his name. If you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated. Every penny counts.

Goonies never die

Comedy Stray Notes October 18, 2021

• Back in June, I started a pilot/spec writing class with comedy legend Brent Forrester who wrote for “The Office,” “The Simpsons” and many other classic tv shows. The six-week course was invaluable; I learned a number of tips that are applicable not to just specs and pilots but to every kind of writing. So, when the class ended and they offered a “Reader’s Service” where students can submit their teleplays for review, I jumped at the chance and submitted my “Mythic Quest” spec script. 

Two weeks ago, I received an email. It started with “Congratulations” so I thought for sure it was a spam message that had somehow made its way into my inbox. Upon further inspection, I found out the email was legit. My spec somehow came in first place out of 50 scripts. Full disclosure, this is coming from a guy who gets a lot of screenplay submission email responses that start out with “We regret to inform you” or “Unfortunately, this year” so this was a pretty big deal for me.

Anyhow, today, I got to bask in the fruits of my labor and participate in a Zoom where the class watched Brent interview me about “Mythic Quest” and then punch up two jokes in my script like he would in a writer’s room. 

For the first joke, he found a pun I completely missed the first time around since I referenced a “widow’s peak” and then in a later line used the word “peek.” He called this a “sock barrel” which Vanity Fair (yes, Vanity Fair) defines as an “Unwelcome circumstance in which two similar but unrelated jokes appear in the same script, implying a connection that is not meant to be implied.” Love learning new comedy terminology.

For the second punch up, Brent called on three writers in the class (“five writers in a writer’s room is the sweet spot” he claimed) and each person added an alt line to a line of my dialogue. It was exhilarating to hear others pitch jokes for something I’d written; I truly felt like I was in a TV staff writer’s room with the power to greenlight or reject a pitch (although I didn’t). Overall, this was a great finale to an already fantastic course; I’d recommend it to anyone interested in learning the finer points of TV writing.

If you have any interest in reading my sort of award-winning spec, reach out to me and I’ll be happy to send you a 34-page PDF.

• ”It was a great week to experience shows live,” said the guy who went to three shows this week. Here’s what I saw:

- My wife Anna Paone played a large role in the darkly comic Off-Broadway play “Love Parade” written and directed by Justin Vibbert that had a three-show run in the Lower East Side. The narrative in the “Parade” is centered around the troubled Morrison family whose grandma just passed away. Her presence is felt the entire play- there’s an unnerving, gigantic projection of her smiling face on the back wall looking down on the actors and staring at the audience the entire time.

The meat of the play takes place during a tragic Christmas Eve dinner, where each tightly wound family member’s dark secrets come spilling out in the presence of Anna’s character’s hairstylist fiancee (who has given all of the women in the family identical blonde hairdos). 

Somehow, everyone here is loosely tied to a mysterious incident on a college campus that slowly reveals itself. As a tragedy, the drama scores. To me though, what was most impressive is the way offbeat humor was infused into the serious subject matter. A shouting match about a banal issue like whether or not Entemann’s can be served as a dessert at Christmas was a perfect bit of whimsy in a serious climactic scene. Better yet was Anna’s character’s dialogue with her twin sister about her promiscuity building to a mean-spirited but hilarious crescendo.

The play concluded its run but may be back soon. If it comes back, I’ll be the first to let you know.

- The most prolific showrunner in New York comedy Matt Vita has yet another new show. This one, “Your Life Is A Joke” is an improv interview jamboree co-hosted with Heather Harrison at Brooklyn’s Tiny Cupboard. The two hosts put a new spin on the ASSSCAT, by interviewing multiple themed guests about their lives. In the show I went to, the hosts interviewed two rockstars- one guitarist from a screamo band and the other a frontman for a ska group called Chimichanga.

Their stories about life on the road were predictably nuts and the improvisers found the unusual moments from their anecdotes and heightened them beautifully. One scene had Vita and scene partner Mark Dudzinksi as Englishmen loudly repeating “Google analytics!” in unison which got goofier and funnier each time they said it. In the back half of the show, improviser Will Purpura caught on to a moment from the interview where the musicians had to describe their groups as “like if _____ had a baby with ______.” Will took this moment and turned it into a game making anything into “if ___ had a baby with ____” so quickly that the crowd started laughing in a new way. He’d found the comedy nirvana where one can effortlessly deliver perfect joke after perfect joke.

- Comedy shows are great at night but you know what’s even better? A 5 p.m. show on a Saturday afternoon. Matt Fishman is smart enough to know that we all want to get our laughs in early so we can go enjoy the night. So, Fishman has thankfully given the world Giggle Juice Comedy at QED which is a perfect hourlong mid-afternoon showcase of the best comics in the city. This week, all the comics on the lineup- Ben Katzner, Fluke Human, Danny Rathbun, Subhah Agarwal and Eli Disabato- brought their all to the mid-afternoon and when it was over there was still daylight. Would recommend to any who has ever said, “I’d love to go to your show but it’s past my bedtime.” Now they have no excuse.

- Also, shout out to Tom Thakkar who performed on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon this week. His five-minute set had clever observations about the elderly having trouble sleeping, and just how dangerous trampolines really are but the highlight was his extended closer about how he got banned from Twitter for running a fake account for a show called “My Cat From Hell.” No need to spoil the bit as you should see it yourself but the important takeaway here is that if you pack a story with enough jokes, it has the potential to transform from a funny gag into a legitimate punchline machine. This is a hell of a late-night set and one you should definitely give five minutes to. The link is in the comments.

• I fired up the old flatscreen this week to stream shows and also watch some live. Here’s what I saw:

“Ted Lasso” Season Two: Mid-season, this show caught a bit of flak online for not being funny and/or too positive. That’s a completely fair critique. The show about a fish out of water US football coach (Jason Sudeikis, hosting SNL this coming week) turned wholly unqualified UK football coach might not be for everyone with its teachable moments, pop culture-inspired wordplay and heartwarming Christmas episodes. However, Season Two took audiences to a surprising place that was smart enough to quiet the critics. AFC Richmond, Ted’s team, brought in a therapist (Sarah Niles) to treat the players and coaches. While a therapist storyline typically spells doom in terms of how much fun a show can have, “Lasso” didn’t care and leaned into athletes expressing themselves for the first time which is especially refreshing in the wake of Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles. 

Other than the therapy angle, the whole season took a heavier, weightier, and darker turn. Hell, one whole episode takes place at a funeral and maybe the best the series has ever done using Rick Astley’s overused “Never Gonna Give You Up” rickroll track in a new way that borders on the sublime. Another standalone features an assistant coach on a bender trying to find himself. Lasso himself has a panic attack. Then, there’s a twist so jaw-dropping toward the end of the season, that I literally gasped as it happened. Maybe the haters find this show annoying or not funny, but that’s not the point. “Lasso” is flat-out entertaining. 

Plus, it’s fun to see what life in the UK is like.

SNL hosted by Rami Malek: Last week, I said the show was humming along on a hot streak with singles, doubles, and home run sketches with nary a strikeout. After seeing this episode, I’m happy to report that the show has continued to remain consistent. Plus, Daniel Craig popped by. Starting to think that post-Bond, he should become a full-time cast member. Here’s a quick breakdown of how I ranked each sketch.

Home runs:

Sleepy Town- Perfect. Brilliant escalation, simple, laugh out loud funny.

Rami Malek Monologue- Excellent parody of the villainous types Malek plays.

Prince audition- Absurd, meta, inside baseball AND Prince jokes. 

Celeb School Game Show- I’m a sucker for celebrity impression marathons. 

Weekend Update- Smart climate change and streaming wars jokes; Chris Redd crushed.

Doubles:

Angelo- Featured player Aristotle Athari debuts his character that got him on the show.

Jon Gruden Cold Open: Solid takedown of the disgraced coach. Interesting non-political CO.

Bug Assembly: Will be in Bowen Yang’s “Best Of” in ten years.

Singles: 

Squid Game- Haven’t watched the show but this was tonally bizarre enough to work for me.

Best of all though are the three cut sketches including one from “Please Don’t Destroy” (thanks for the tip, Tom Scudamore). I have no idea how none of these made it in- AirBnB super hosts had all the makings of an instant classic, “Brutal Marriage Movie” is an excellent parody, and “PDD’s” dudes trying to please the host for being on good behavior- were all gold. Oh, well. At least, they exist online. I’ve linked them all in the comments.

That’s all from me for this week. 

As I always wrote in yearbooks, HAGS (Have a great salad)

Comedy Stray Notes October 11, 2021

• Although I was born and raised in the Southwest, I’ve never been to New Mexico. Ever since I was a young Phoenician, it ranked high on my list of places to visit but somehow it never happened other than the random layover until I finally made it there a few weeks back. One of the major reasons for my visit was to check out Albuquerque’s flourishing comedy scene. I’d heard good things through the grapevine and after going to a showcase in the heart of the city, I can confirm those rumors are true. The ABQ truly does have a wellspring of budding, comic talent. Put on by the effortlessly effervescent Sarah Kennedy, she featured a run of diverse comics I’d never seen before but could easily see doing late night. My favorite sets I saw that evening took Pixar concepts to darker, more messed up places than I’d ever heard and the other best bit paid tribute to Sarah in a cheeky, reverential way. Forget the green chili. The main attraction in New Mexico is the jokes. 

If you can’t travel to the great state yourself, try checking out the Funny Fiesta on Oct. 14-23. Many shows will be available for sweet, sweet streaming. I got the link with all the information below.

• I’ve gotten into the habit of performing just once a month since June. It’s not intentional; it’s just been like this somehow for five months. 

This has led to a number of rusty sets (well, if you’re counting, that’s five rusty sets) but this last one, at a storytelling mic at the Tiny Cupboard, while rusty, felt the most organic. On Tuesdays, James Sueling gives comics a whopping seven minutes to tell stories. Participating comics can either follow a pre-assigned theme or do their own thing. I went my own way and told the tale of three Mets players living in the last building Anna Paone and I resided in and how we had one awkward encounter with a player’s wife hoping to become friends with her. It’s not an amazing story but it was liberating to go onstage and not feel obligated to have a punchline every 15-20 seconds. If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut, storytelling is a fantastic way to break out of that headspace. You’ll get to tell an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end (hopefully) and might even find laughs where you’d least expect them. Would recommend.

Side stray note: Matt Storrs and Laura High told exceptional stories full of life and humor that night. Book these two if you’re a booker or see them if you’re a fan. They’re both darn good.

• Bypassed TikTok and watched two amazing shorts with New York comics this week on my favorite medium of all: YouTube. Check these two out:

- Sarah Tollemache and Greg Stone star in the scarily accurate five-minute “NYC Landlord” that is a perfect recreation of what the landlord experience in the City is like. Here, Sarah’s character’s shower isn’t working and Greg’s Greek landlord enters without knocking- it’s his building. Why would he need to? This sets up a number of fantastic comic interactions where Greg ingratiates himself into Sarah’s life rummaging through her paperwork and offering doorknobs made by a friend. Best of all, Sarah’s underplayed, naturalistic style meshes perfectly with Greg’s broad, boorish approach. The two are a heck of a comedic duo.

- Newsletter writer powerhouse Matt Ruby is also a gifted sketch writer and director in his own right. This week I happened to come across his hysterical “Behind the velvet rope: Nightclub doormen reveal their secrets (Club Scale)” starring Dan Soder and Joe List. The two quickly distinguish the important difference between bouncers and doormen then teach you more about velvet rope than you ever knew you wanted to know. Soder and List both give fantastic, lived-in performances and for two minutes, you forget that these are comics- you genuinely buy that they’re doormen (not bouncers).

- If it was up to me, I’d be watching TV and movies every day, non-stop, all the time. Unfortunately, that’s just not the world I live in. So, for now, here are the few things I did see and what I done thought about them.

-Don’t know if I’m writing with rose-colored glasses or not but SNL is only two episodes deep into this young season and already has found a rhythm. It may be the gargantuan cast size spreading the wealth so there’s a true variety of voices or veteran writers having a keener understanding of what works for TV but whatever is going on, the jokes are smarter, faster, and more consistent than seasons’ past in my humble opinion. I mean, one wouldn’t expect an episode hosted by Kim Kardashian to make fun of the media mogul in a way that approached genuine satire more than easy parody. Yet, there Kardashian was at the center going in for the kill lampooning her sisters stealing her look, Kanye’s shortcomings as a partner, and how SNL’s viewership will never touch how many people watch her Instagram stories. This was just the monologue.

The rest of the episode was equally strong. Rookie James Austin Johnson stepped in for Kate McKinnon’s Lindsey Graham in the Cold Open mocking out-of-touch Senators deliberating on Facebook’s Instagram for Kids and brought a creepier spin to the role than the childlike imp McKinnon played the diminutive lawmaker as. The guy is making a huge mark.

Another huge mark made on the show came from writers turned next-generation digital shorts artisans Please Don’t Destroy. The three young comic actors who got a ton of buzz this summer made their debut with the brief two-minute sketch “Hard seltzer.” The goofy sponsored drink game is a perfect distillation of their sensibility- ridiculous jokes played straight very quickly, escalations every few seconds, and finally a surprising resolution of conflict. If you can’t tell, I’m a fan and very excited to see how Lorne and co. let the three writers turned actors spread their wings over the next few weeks. 

The unspoken part of the conversation here, however, has to be around SNL’s new stunt hosting pattern. This new host-selection method where the show brings in high-profile non-actors like Elon Musk and this year’s Kim K understandably anger the show’s real fans. However, these one-off episodes built around a personality bring in more eyeballs than “normal” episodes like this year’s season premiere with Owen Wilson (Deadline reports that ratings were up 0.3 which means 0.3% more of the US watched this episode). So, purists, get used to it. There’s most likely going to be a lot more of these episodes with major personalities who have tons of followers rather than traditional performers in the future. Here’s hoping we get Banksy next.

• Side stray note: The 70s iteration of the show had a TON of oddball hosts like The Rolling Stones, Ron Nessen (Gerald Ford’s press secretary), and an elderly woman named Miskel Spillman who won an “Anyone can host” contest. None were major personalities (other than The Stones here) but the episodes had a cohesive feel where the show focused on the host rather than letting them blend in. In my opinion, they’re a nice departure from your typical grab bag show.

- “The Problem with Jon Stewart” premiered on Apple TV and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. It FEELS important- rawer and more civic-minded than the already iconically political “The Daily Show.” However, by acting as almost straight news, Stewart loses his greatest weapon: irony.

To be fair, Stewart’s second greatest weapon is righteous indignation. This show has a lot of that as Stewart intercuts between 1) his writer’s staff riffing, 2) the actual show where he seriously covers US military waste disposal AKA “burn pits” AKA that put veterans’ lives at risk, and 3) confrontational interviews with lawmakers. It’s a lot. Yes, it’s educational and rewarding to hear the soldiers’ side of the story but by speaking truth to power with a straight, angered face, one of our all-time great satirists loses quite a bit of his potency. Here’s hoping later episodes smirk more at those in charge rather than just fight.

- Everywhere I turn, I hear about Laurie Santos’ “Happiness Project.” It’s one of the most popular podcasts going these days and feels more vital than ever as we all try to bounce back from our post-post-pandemic funk. I’ll be real though. I hadn’t listened. I needed a gateway to this non-comedy pod. Thankfully, Santos made a pit stop on Pete Holmes’ “You Made It Weird” which is exactly the intro I needed. In an atypically short episode coming in at 75 minutes, Holmes and Santos discuss her podcast and happiness frankly. It’s not a showstopper but I did walk away with one interesting observation that came from a study: talking to people rather than keeping to yourself makes you happier (so true, at least for me). That nugget alone was worth the entire episode for me. Santos knows her stuff.

• Cool news coming next week. Be on the lookout.

Over and out, amigos. Over and out.

Comedy Stray Notes October 4, 2021

• It’s possible you may have noticed there were no Comedy Stray Notes last week. It’s also possible this completely flew under your radar. I would understand that more. Anyhow, the reason for my absence is twofold. First, the wife (Anna) and I took a short weekend trip to Albuquerque, NM last Friday-Sunday attending a wedding and taking a self-guided “Better Call Saul” tour led by Anna. Yes, we saw the nail salon Jimmy McGill lives in for the first few seasons in person. There’s also a Wienerschnitzel in that parking lot if you were curious. The second reason I didn’t get around to writing anything last week was we’ve been in the middle of a move from Long Island City in Queens to Sunnyside in Queens. Our new place is 1.1 miles from our old one but the relocation took all of our off-time this week and writing a self-indulgent newsletter ranked pretty low on the list of priorities. Anyhow, I now have time back on my hands. So, here’s my self-indulgent newsletter.

• I’ve been trying to bolster my writing resume for years. Other than this newsletter, “A Profile About You” and coming in second place in a “young adult screenwriting competition” a decade ago, I don’t have any real credits. So, this summer, I applied for a few different “Contributing Writer” positions at various entertainment sites. One passed me onto the writing sample phase of the application process where I spent two days writing multiple essays to see if I had the “goods” to advance to the next round. I didn’t have the goods.

That didn’t deter me though. I was completely determined to get a byline on one of these sites so I soldiered on and went through the same process sending in a cover letter and resume to Screen Rant. They replied quickly and requested I write about one of their pre-selected topics. The topic? “Hubie Halloween.” My thesis? That the film was a “secret ‘Happy Gilmore’ and ‘Billy Madison’ sequel.” I spent way too long coming up with that. Then, I began a months-long training writing pieces to never be seen by anyone about “Breaking Bad” and the Hillary Swank “Karate Kid.” After a lot of trial and error, SEO training, and rewriting, I became a Screen Rant writer. Thus far, I have written one piece about a now semi-old episode of “Ted Lasso.” The cool thing though is I have a byline on a legitimate site. Resume bolstered. 

• One of the best parts of society reopening has to be the return of the bar show. Damn, I missed a good bar show with like eight comics doing eight minutes. It’s one of the most perfect ways to see comedy. Not too much, not too little. Matt Vita’s weekly at Young Ethel’s in Brooklyn is just that. I sat in on his show two Tuesdays ago. There were many great comics I’d never seen before but more than anything just BEING THERE created such a sense of lost camaraderie that for a brief moment it felt like pre-pandemic life. As fun as it was to hear jokes in a low-pressure environment, seeing comics I hadn’t seen in person in over a year was the greatest treat of all. This is a fantastic hang show and if you’re still on the fence about showing up to support, please know that there’s an 11 PM mic afterward too. Remember those? I didn’t.

• Got two super quick, super funny, super unique comedy recommendations that you can find on your Instagram feed (that is, if the app isn’t still down when you’re reading this):

-Comedic duo Max Weinbach and Nicky Weinbach are constantly making classic conventions seem brand new. In their most recent video, the two of them bring their trademark matching suits and rat-a-tat-tat absurdist patter to a place I’d always fantasized about doing a set: an airplane. Introduced by a flight attendant, Max and Nicky take center stage and perform for what I have to imagine are unsuspecting passengers. Now, no one likes to have their flight interrupted but somehow this crowd was incredibly receptive to the duo act. This makes sense- the jokes are brief, silly, and would work anywhere. Even 35,000 feet in the air.

- I loved how incredibly simple Dan Harumi’s animated over-the-counter medicine review is. By reviewing things that don’t even deserve reviews, it feels like Dan has invented a new type of comedy giving weight to the commonplace going into detail about their active ingredients and effects. Best of all, stay for hysterical analysis like, “Zyrtec makes me feel like a monster. I can’t explain it. It does work though.”

• Over the past two weeks, I mostly moved boxes. In rare moments of downtime, I caught the season premiere of SNL and two somewhat random films. Here are my lukewarm takes.

SNL hosted by Owen Wilson:  This was an odd duck of a season premiere. While Owen Wilson is indisputably great, his character actor status lent itself to an episode that felt more like a solid, B/B+ midseason edition of the show rather than a flashy season premiere. I’m not really complaining; it was more just a different flavor than I was expecting. 

The whole episode was just a little different than I expected. Right out of the gate, brand new featured player James Austin Johnson came in to play the Darrell Hammond master impressionist role in such an assured way that it almost lessened the blow that was Beck Bennett’s summer departure. Although JAJ’s Biden was more accurate than funny, it was possibly the most impressive cast member debut in history including the first episode in show history way back in 1975. When I throw out that praise, I’m pointing more toward his incredible straight man performance in the “Crazy House” sketch as a showcase for his chops than his Biden. It’s going to be exciting to see where he goes from here.

The old guard made up of Cecily Strong, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney, Kenan Thompson, Colin Jost, and Michael Che seem to have outgrown the show. They feel like they’re all there against their own will. I love them but it’s time to let the new kids shine. All of the above are more than worthy of their own TV shows and most of them have already had that opportunity contradicting the famous “Not Ready For Primetime Players” bit that used to be the show’s backbone. Word on the street is they’ll all stay on the show until Season 50. We’ll see if Lorne sticks to that game plan after this season ends.

This 90-minute variety pack really did everything it could to cram all of the summer news stories in as best it could. Sticking out most like a sore thumb was an outdated Jeff Bezos space race piece that felt like a clone of one from Jon Stewart’s new show starring Jason Alexander as Bezos which came out (checks notes) on July 20, 2021. Just a bizarre choice.

What makes said choice even odder is that the cut for time sketch “Splitting the check” was so supremely absurd and different that it was a shame it got the ax instead of the forgettable Bezos bit. I’ve linked it in the comments below and I implore you to stay for the entirety of the sketch as it goes to places you wouldn’t expect after watching just half.

“Out of Sight” (1998): My opening line to my wife Anna on Tinder years ago was, “What was your favorite movie released in 1998?” This was the movie she chose. I’d seen it years before but didn’t really remember it and always felt bad we never revisited one of her favorites. So, this year, the game plan was to watch it on our anniversary which we did. Better yet, Anna was so familiar with the film’s twists and minor plot holes that she explained confusing non-linear scenes to me with ease. 

The two-hour three-minute cat and mouse caper full of double-crossing and convoluted crime plots are really just a cover-up for a forbidden love story at its center between a career criminal played by George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez’s federal agent. Surrounding them is an epic cast comprised of Ving Rhames as the sensitive best friend literally named Buddy, Don Cheadle as a crooked boxer, Steve Zahn as a scatterbrained low-level traitor, and Albert Brooks with ridiculous prosthetic teeth and numerous toupees. There’s also a young Viola Davis thrown into the mix for good measure. 

Let’s go non-linear now and go back to the first scene. 

“Out of Sight” starts strongly with a beautifully executed, timeless bank robbery con that demonstrates just why Clooney is a movie star- he can make menacing charming. 

The rest of the movie is certainly good full of stylish flourishes like the odd freeze-frame and jumpy edits to keep you on your toes, but it never quite reaches the heights of where it began. At times, “OoS” felt like it was just a bit too complicated and trying too hard to be “Pulp Fiction.” However, the love story at the center, talented cast, quotable lines and Anna’s love for the film GIVE THIS A THUMB’S UP FROM ME (Purchased on Amazon Prime).

“Freaky” (2020): Just when you think the body swap comedy has been done in every way imaginable, the Blumhouse-ified horror movie version adds a worthy contribution to this minor subgenre. The 2020 film which got a very minor theatrical release before being dumped to streaming is also now playing on Jet Blue flights all over the country and I can vouch that it makes for a quick watch when flying across the country on a red eye. 

As for the story, you’ve seen it before- what makes “Freaky” special are the changed ingredients. Here, an innocent teenager (Kathryn Newton) whose favorite film is “Pitch Perfect 2” even though she tells everyone it’s “Eternal Sunshine” has a late-night, near-death encounter with an escaped convict (Vince Vaughn) that causes them to switch bodies. Forget the logic behind the switch and stay for the well-done world-building where the Vaughn character turns into a bubbly teenager who nearly engages in a farcical romantic interaction with his/her own mom and Newton becomes a sociopath living at home eating pancakes with her bare hands in one of those classic dedicated gross-out bits that always skirt the line of funny and nasty. The same could be said for a lot of the movie- some violence here is certainly gratuitous (I guess it is a horror film) and many jokes feel pulled from the new era of “Jumanji” body swap comedies. STILL, THE MOVIE WALKS THE HORROR COMEDY LINE DEFTLY EVEN IF IT SOMETIMES SLIPS A BIT (Streaming on Hulu).

• There won’t be any Comedy Stray Notes this coming week because I’ll be at a wedding in Florida. I’ll be back on October 17 with two whole new weeks of fresh, hot stray notes ready to go for you.

Au revoir, Shoshanna

Comedy Stray Notes September 19, 2021

• The comedy world took a monumental blow earlier this week with the untimely, early passing of Norm MacDonald. In fact, to me, this last Tuesday was “Hug A 28-45-year-old” because he meant so much to that elder Millennial/Gen X age group. He was considered by many to be their favorite comic but everyone had a different reason for why they loved Norm. For some, it was his stand-up, which was his trade. For others, his controversial, four-year stint at the SNL Weekend Update desk in the mid-90s where he made intentionally on-the-nose jokes about OJ Simpson and was eventually ousted for it was what their frame of reference was for him. Many know him for his legendary appearances on talk shows like Conan where he would tell street jokes and lecture other guests about misguided career choices. Then, there’s his famous appearance at the Bob Saget Roast. Norm also had multiple talk shows with his name in the title (one was simply called “Norm MacDonald Has A Show”), judged “Last Comic Standing,” wrote an absurd half-biography half-biography parody called “Based On A True Story,” cried on his final Letterman appearance, his film “Dirty Work,” his two sitcoms, his Bob Dole/Burt Reynolds/Larry King impressions or just that face. The face that was known for glee as a young man and a knowing stoicism later. He simply got his comedy DNA on every facet of show business he could and will certainly be missed and mourned for years to come.

My Norm personal interaction story is a simple one. I had just started working at the Tempe Improv in the fall of 2010 as a doorman. The job was simple- check IDs, put wristbands on customers before the show, and then stand in the showroom and watch the show from the side of the room to make sure there’s no funny business. My main recollection from Norm’s weekend of shows was his unique pronunciation of the word “Dollop” which he repeated so many times that it became funnier with each new utterance. After one of the shows, he stood outside to shoot the breeze with the young staff. For a moment, no one was talking his ear off and I had his attention for a moment. I said something banal like, “SNL was crazy in the 90s, wasn’t it?” and he replied, “Oh, I’ve got stories.” I thought this was a promise he would tell me said stories later in the weekend but that never happened. I’ll always wish I heard them.

This week, after Anna broke the news to me (she whimpered, “Oh, no. I’m so sorry,” while we were both working remotely), I made it my solemn duty to re-listen to his seminal appearance on WTF. Not having heard this talk in a decade, the conversation has aged interestingly. Norm has many great insights like “the guy on the sitcom needs to be charismatic. Comics with good jokes are hired to write;” “SNL was full of comics who couldn’t act when I was there;” “I hate cleverness because people laugh at things that conceal what they’re actually laughing at” which was his explanation for why he makes his punchlines so plain and then the cherry on top is a fantastic story about how he learned how to actually be from funny and present onstage from Sinbad. He also uses many outdated offensive terms that put a blemish on an otherwise fascinating look into the mind of a comic genius. So, there is that. 

Then, later in the week, the narrative shifted. Many women bravely came forward online and shared their stories about Norm harassing them. Some accused him of inappropriate touching and an opener of his told a tale of him belittling her onstage for no real reason. I’m sure these stories don’t exist in a vacuum; there are likely many others. So while we should mourn the loss of an all-time great (and one of my favorites), we do need to recognize that he had faults. Comedians may be incredibly funny people but they’re not perfect.

Norm, comedy is not the same without you; your legacy as a performer is something every comic aspires to and your misconduct is something we can all learn from to make sure it’s never repeated.

• Other than the Norm news which seemed to stop the comedy world dead in its tracks, I did catch a few great things this week that are worth looking into.

- Last Sunday evening, Danny Braff invited Anna and me to Harrison Greenbaum’s SCAM Magic Show in Midtown. Other than a quick Google search, we went in completely blind to the event. This was the right call and if you want that experience, skip ahead to the next paragraph. If not, let me tell you a little bit about the show. First, your party is led to a downstairs bar where you meet a cloaked Secret Society of Magicians who give the crowd a bit of goofy historical context for the show explaining that the Society has existed for centuries. There are also Taylor Swift jokes. Soon, the crowd is split into small groups and taken to rooms where a number of magicians perform sleight of hand, updated rope tricks for 2021, an unbelievable seance and a simplified shell game that removed all extraneous elements and still baffled my feeble mind. Meanwhile, in between acts, there is a clever escape the room-like mystery that is both dramatically and comedically satisfying. If you’re a New Yorker with visiting parents who have seen it all, you can’t do better than bringing them to this show. It’s got the comedy factor for you and wow spectacle for them. Plus, there’s a show after the show. I couldn’t ask for more.

- As a speech and debate alum (otherwise known as “speechies”), I’ve been patiently waiting for pop culture to catch up to the bizarre, insular competitive high school ecosystem that is maybe a bit too niche for the general public. My hope is that Sam Morrison and Kenice Mobley’s excellent pilot “Speech and Debate” takes the torch and introduces the world to the club that is so much stranger and more interesting than it sounds. In the episode, they wrote and performed at Union Hall, Sam and Marcia Belsky play narcissistic team captains who introduce new innocent overachiever teammate Kenice to the fold. Although she’s naive and in over her head, she ends up teaching Sam’s character quite a lesson about speech’s seedy underbelly. However, what I loved most about this pilot was its reverence for the source material. Sam and Marcia lovingly explain each speech event and debate type with humor and simplicity that cuts through the noise and makes it so anyone can understand. Best of all though was the excellent line, “Speech makes shy useless kids into loud, mean boys.” I’d never heard it put more succinctly. Can’t wait until this is on streaming. If interested in a recording "Speech and Debate" email Sam Morrison at samhmorrison@gmail.com. 

- You know a Tweet has gone viral when it shows up in a group text thread. That was the case this week with Brian Bahe’s semi-tragic, 100% hilarious Tweet about getting let go from his work. I’m not going to spoil the joke though. You’re going to have to click that link if you want to see what the big deal was here. Go ahead and like the Tweet and follow Bahe too for all-around top-notch content.

• Finally, I wanted to shout out one TV show. It’s just one, I swear.

“Miracle Workers” (2019- ): As a major Simon Rich nerd who loved “Man Seeking Woman” more than any other 2010s sitcom, having completely missed out on “Miracle Workers” felt like a major oversight on my part. I’d seen all the promotional materials and knew the gist but I’d never plopped down and seen the thing (Full disclosure, I still haven’t seen the show in its entirety; I have yet to check out the new, heavily advertised “Oregon Trail”-themed third season). Now that it’s on HBO Max, it’s hard not to watch the easily digestible 20-minute episodes in quick succession.

What makes this show special is that every season goes to a completely different universe but maintains largely the same cast. The first season takes place in Heaven and stars Steve Buscemi playing an incompetent stand-in for God who dreams of creating a lazy river-centric restaurant. Then, there are the actual miracle workers played by the tense, socially awkward Daniel Radcliffe and can-do spirited Geraldine Viswanathan who perform the mildest of miracles- mainly they find lost keys. At first, the series seems a bit lightweight and maybe even a little tonally off; it’s just missing a grounded reality for us viewers to latch onto. Later, when we learn how inept Radcliffe is spending all of his time obsessing over what it would be like to “get burgers” with friends, “Miracle Workers” finds its sea legs. The thrust of the first season’s narrative is getting an impossibly awk earth couple together as part of a bet between God and the miracle workers; if they don’t become a couple, it jeopardizes existence. It’s a fun conceit literally counting down the minutes to the end of the season.  

It should also be said there are some choice jokes that work within the confines of this universe. My favorites were learning that Buscemi’s God is a trust fund kid which leads to his parents saying about him, “You started nine planets but only got one of them to work” and then God defending his creations explaining, “A cow is a big dog you can drink from and a dog is a small cow you can be friends with.” 

Also, there are cameos from comedy MVPs Titus Burgess, Chris Parnell, Tim Meadows, John Reynolds, and Angela Kinsey. Love seeing home run hitters secretly assembled on a show where you had no idea you were about to see them do their thing.

Season two is a completely different vibe; the show moves to the Dark Ages and lampoons our modern times through an ancient lens. Radcliffe plays royalty; Buscemi shovels excrement and Viswanathan plays his ambitious daughter. The narrative throughline isn’t quite as linear as Season One but the jokes are sharper. Some favorites include a medieval class beginning with, 

“The Earth is flat, the devil is real,” Fred Armisen playing a one-hit-wonder rocker who only likes to play new stuff and an uncomfortable Harvest Day dinner that was clearly a stand-in for arguing with Trump-supporting relatives. IF YOU LIKE YOUR COMEDY TO BE SMART, NERDY AND PRECIOUS, I’VE FOUND THE SHOW FOR YOU (Streaming on HBO Max).

That’s all she wrote for me. Enjoy your scroll!

Comedy Stray Notes September 12, 2021

• As we head into month 18 (!) of the pandemic, its influence is still felt nearly every single day in new and upsetting ways. Just today, the New York Times reported 146,790 cases and 1,666 new deaths. I’m sure you’ve seen statuses from friends who “regret to inform you they have COVID” even though they’re vaccinated and masked up. In some ways, it feels like we’re back where we started last March. Yes, the variant is 29 times more likely to infect unvaccinated people (although that number differs from news source to news source when you Google “how much more likely is it for an unvaccinated person to get COVID”) but clearly, its affects everyone that have done everything right. I know, I know, I’m preaching to the choir here. 

So, what does any of this have to do with comedy?

Well, this is the smallest complaint ever but two events I was planning on attending didn’t “happen” (more on this very soon). Writing those words makes me feel like such a jerk for even bringing it up. The first show I was planning on seeing on Wednesday was something I’d been looking forward to for a long time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend because a friend I’d recently seen had a breakthrough case. I immediately got tested. The rapid was negative but it felt silly and selfish to go out right after a test. I certainly could have but it felt wrong on multiple levels to go sit in a basement with others after having so much anxiety just moments before I got my results. Then, last night, after getting official word I was cleared after a negative PCR test, the second show I was literally standing outside waiting to begin was canceled due to another scare. In the grand scheme of what’s happening in the world, this is the most minor shout into the void. However, it’s also a friendly reminder that if you haven’t been vaccinated or been masking indoors, the risk of infection is as high as ever and could happen to any of us at any time. We may just have to “live with COVID” but that doesn’t mean you can prevent it. Plus, I want to see some shows (fully masked that is). I will slowly climb off my soapbox now. Just had to do it.

• Busy week. Didn’t see a lot as I annoyingly noted above but I did find two things online that are very worthy of your attention.

- One of my favorite NY comics Blair Dawson posted a short clip from her Littlefield set this week that immediately struck me as late night ready. The premise is perfectly ripe for comedy- Blair let herself get vulnerable with an ex and wrote poetry to them. Relatable, self deprecating and real. What makes the joke great though is the direction Blair takes imagining what happens with the poetry after the breakup. The bit gets huge laughs but more than anything else, it serves as a perfect distillation of Blair’s comic persona which is the ultimate goal of the comedian. This is very much worth the watch and super short. What’s not to like? The answer is nothing. Click that link already!

- In high school, I did public forum debate with my friend Jennifer Himel. Even when I was 18, I was self-aware enough to know Jennifer carried the two of us and saw big things in her future. Now, I’m no Nostradamus but this time I was right. These days, Jennifer is the brains behind Big Sky Soap Arizona, a company she founded that produces high quality soaps that started small at flea markets and became a full-fledged business featured on the “Today Show.” My first exposure to this business was through the Native Talk podcast where Jennifer tells her origin story and process for making the soaps. Toward the end of the interview, Jennifer mentions the business has a TikTok and as a longtime friend/fan of her sense of humor, I had to see. I’m happy to report that even though Jennifer is now a legit business owner, she still has the same goofy, happy-go-lucky demeanor she did way back when in the mid-2000s. Featuring 20+ day in the life snapshots of what it’s like to be the head of a business and boomerangs with her mom and son, it’s a worthy, quirky look into the life of a business founder. Plus, the soap rules too.

- Two weeks ago, I wrote about the TikTok phenomenon where once you find “your thing” you can repeat it forever, altering it slightly and maintaining its popularity. I was so convinced of this formula that I figured I’d try and repeat my success once again. Well, I got too cocky and finally got the diminishing results I’d expected after repeating my thing one too many times. The third sketch in my series of “quick hit observations of b-roll footage all in the same place” was filmed at Trader Joe’s and flatlined on the Tok timeline. It’s not quite as high energy as the first two I did but there’s no way the algorithm would know that. Or would they? Anyhow, I think this is a quick, somewhat satirical look at the way Trader Joe’s markets their food as healthy that I think you may enjoy if you’ve ever grocery shopped or stepped foot inside there.

• Went fully masked (!) to the movies this week and listened to a podcast in my apartment (I didn’t wear a mask for that). Here are some Kerouackian first impressions:

“Free Guy” (2021): You wouldn’t believe it but trailers for this movie aired as early as December 2019. Then, it was shelved for...21 months. Things happened in that interim. This was never more painfully obvious than when Alex Trebek jarringly showed up in a surprise cameo role as the host of “Jeopardy” in this movie. I love that they kept it in the film; it really shows how much things have changed since this film’s anticipated release date versus when it actually came out. However, the mild glorification of cops portraying them as friendly in the story’s game within the movie also shows the film’s age in a less savory way. 

As for the actual film itself, this is a very fun, if not mildly cheesy and slightly overlong (there must have been ten climaxes) original standalone blockbuster which is getting rarer and rarer in our franchise-saturated world. “Free Guy” tells the story of “Guy” (Ryan Reynolds) an NPC or “Non Playable Character” in violent video game world “Free City” where robberies and violence are so commonplace that NPCs simply accept them as the norm. Here, every day is the same routine for Guy until he spots his rogue dream girl while being held hostage during his daily bank robbery. Guy goes off book to follow her on a path that no NPC has ever gone down and develops his own free will in the process literally becoming a “Free Guy.” Here, the movie zooms out and introduces us to the modern, real world and we meet the characters that created the game. They’re just as confused about how and why Guy went off script and the movie sets out to solve this mystery. This doesn’t quite do the movie’s complex and funny screenplay justice but I am very tired.

There are a few logical gaps in the film but as a whole, it’s so chipper and full of that fast talking Ryan Reynolds smarm that you want to hate but can’t help but love that I’ll give it a pass. Plus, a Channing Tatum cameo as an avatar for a nerdy player toed the line of creepiness and laugh out loud funny so effectively that I’m preemptively calling it the cringe moment of the year. WHILE A BIT ON THE LONG SIDE, IT’S FUNNY AND WINNING ENOUGH TO SEE IN THEATERS WHILE YOU STILL CAN. 

- The Mental Health Comedy Hour with Alonzo Bodden: Sorry to continue harping on the same talking point but as we march into month 18 of the global pandemic, mental health is something that we need to take just as seriously as COVID. Whatever your process may be, whether it’s meditation, self care or therapy, it’s important to look after yourself. I’ve tried all three that I’ve mentioned and feel like I’ve made major strides thanks to each. Should you want to hear others deal with their troubles though, you can’t do much better than this quick 40-minute podcast hosted by Ed Crasnick and Jennifer Kolari where they walk you through potential, practical scenarios that could lead to panic attacks such as identity theft fraud or losing your phone and identifying that they’re not life or death- it’s not an emergency, it’s an inconvenience.  That kind of perspective is so refreshing to hear in a sea of podcasts that rarely offer such valuable tips.

Midway through the podcast, the two bring on “Last Comic Standing” alum Alonzo Bodden to discuss mental health. I’ve loved Bodden for years particularly because he insisted on doing new material every week on “Last Comic Standing” whereas others rehashed bits each show exposing their lack of depth. This range he displayed back then shone through in this episode as well where he spoke on a number of topics shedding light on how “Black stress increases when cops are nearby because ‘there could be someone who looks like me out there doing something that I could be arrested for.’” He also went into great detail on his 23-year stint in Alcoholics Anonymous where he’s had the same sponsor the entire time and then toward the end said something I’d never heard before but was so powerful that I have to share it here: “You’re good as long as you believe in a higher power as long as it’s not you.” It may be a well-known sentiment but it stuck with me and I say that line alone was worth the price of admission for me. Plus, the jokes about white supremacists and what Google lists as celebrities' net worth aren’t half bad either. This is a great place to start if you’re looking for a podcast about mental health with a sense of humor.

• I’m in the process of searching for a residential lobby with a door man to film a sketch starring Anna Paone. If you know of anything in the five boroughs that would allow me to do so for a small fee, let me know. You’ll get a producer credit.

That’s right- reading this very newsletter could get you on IMDb in like six months

Comedy Stray Notes September 5, 2021

• As a person who enjoys writing about others, there really is no better feeling than when it’s reciprocated. It’s especially validating when a talented interviewer who has done their homework uses you as their subject. In my case (and my wife Anna Paone’s), I was asked probing questions by the gifted writer Kevin Stephany on his Critique Compendium site about my videos and time doing comedy. This was no template; Kevin read my newsletter, watched my sketches, heck, he even quoted me. In fact, one of the questions was, “You take the concept of bathroom humor to another level in your YouTube sketch “100 Movies to See before You Poop.” How did the muse of creativity grace you with that idea?” As the kids say, “I felt seen.” In addition to my interview, Kevin has reviewed a great number of plays and his site is full of top-notch criticism. Check out his site and you might get lost clicking on endless pieces each better than the last.

* For context, the interview was written in advance of my “Best Of” screening so many questions center around that. If you missed the “Best Of” and want to see it, I’ll gladly send a link your way. Just let me know. You know I love to send a good link.

• I listened to, watched, attended and read a few really great comedy things this week. These are those great things:

- NY comic Nikki MacCallum wrote an intimate and slyly hysterical memoir about her experience running a marathon to connect with her father called “Dry Run” and just this past week released the podcast (!) version on Spotify. I quickly binged all 26.2 episodes, one for each mile, becoming more and more engrossed each mile I listened to. Each chapter begins with real time marathon updates where Nikki fills the listener in on what’s happening in the race like the part in her hair becoming sunburnt and racing preteens. Once the update concludes, the memoir portion of the chapter kicks in telling the story of Nikki’s family in 90s Massachusetts. The crux of this actual story is about Nikki’s father who ran 32 marathons and struggled with alcohol addiction. However, dramatic that sounds, in Nikki’s hands, she deftly oscillates between giving the material the gravity it deserves and levity; some of my favorite moments wedged in this story were about friends taking “bites” of her cheesecake when not getting desserts of their own and her inner monologue refusing to let her run less than four miles at anything less than a 6.0 speed. While a marathon may be exhausting, listening to this pod is a breeze. Easily my favorite audiobook of the year.

* I was inspired to run while listening to this podcast. While running, I thought about giving in three miles in on the treadmill. Then, Nikki detailed what it was like to be on mile 18. Thanks to that, I ran two more miles and got five in for the day. So, if you need content to get you over a jogging plateau you can never eclipse, this might be the pod for you.

- If you’ve ever been in an improv class, you’ve noticed certain archetypes of folks that show up in each class. I don’t know how but they’re always there. That’s what makes Maggie Lalley’s TikTok video “Every Level One Improv Class” so incredibly relatable. Switching outfits and voices, she jumps from character to character embodying the creep, the “scary corporate person” and the kooky teacher with a scary degree of accuracy. I’ve known all of these people before and Maggie brought me right back to my UCB 101 class I paid way too much for so long ago. This is a spot-on walk down memory lane for those that have taken these courses and also a cautionary tale for those who have thought of dipping their toe in the improv waters. Plus, it’s less than a minute so there’s that.

- This Saturday, I performed at Barak Ziv’s outdoor Bar Popular mic with a number of great comics but the real story was the hype woman heckler who stayed for the whole show. Most performers handled her chatty, sing-songy demeanor with ease and others folded under the pressure of getting her to be quiet. Either way, I argue that she made the mic better. Some hecklers bring the show down with their negative energy; in this case, this positive stranger who plopped down for the entirety of the mic covered up silences and never stopped supporting in her own bizarro way. I wouldn’t want her at every show or mic I went to but for this one, I was a fan.

- I also attended Matt Storrs’ “How Was It” storytelling show at QED. The show/mic featured an eclectic group of performers who told stories that varied wildly in tone, style and content. I walked in late and watched a breakup over text in real time and by the end I’d heard stories about a comic meeting his father in Nicaragua, a painful catfish and a pandemic engagement. IMHO, storytelling is a freer, purer form of communication than stand up and this 90-minute weekly that Storrs puts on is the best place in the city to tell your tale in a friendly environment.

- There’s not a ton of great comedy news newsletters. There’s certainly a ton of funny newsletters but not enough that report on the state of comedy. The good news is that Sean McCarthy’s Piffany exists. This Substack is so incredibly readable and informative that you’ll feel that you won’t need to actually read check out any additional coverage after subscribing to his writing. The past few weeks he reviewed all the comics who performed at JFL’s New Faces (and just how new their faces are), a comedy festival where three comics died a month later from COVID and a scathing critique of Lorne Michaels’ plan to keep the veteran cast onboard until Season 50. I read all three back to back to back and urge you to do the same. This is the real deal for comedy nerds.

• It’s difficult to finish tv shows and books that you love. Here’s some brief notes on a show I caught up on (there’s one more season set for 2022) and a book I sped through:

“Better Call Saul” (2015- ): This show shouldn’t be this good. Spinoffs are never good. However, by giving side characters Saul Goodman and Mike Ehrmentraut the spotlight, the iconic New Mexico universe expands and refracts in new ways which reshapes and reframes the alread near-perfect “Breaking Bad.” This is a show about two kinds of wrong; you simply have to figure out who is more wrong which can be endlessly entertaining.

Over the course of the five seasons that have been released, the audience is treated to the origin story of Bob Odenkirk’s crooked, fledgling lawyer Jimmy McGill and how he becomes Saul dripping in dramatic irony since we know every character’s fate from the later series. Along the way, the creative time behind “BB” treat the audience to so many backstories we didn’t even know we needed- there’s an able-bodied Hector Salamanca, the story of how Gus Fring and Mike Ehrmentraut’s business partnership came to be and an amazing episode devoted to how Jimmy AKA Saul got Huell (Lavell Crawford) out of prison with a scam so brilliant you have to see it to believe it. “BCS” also introduces fans to characters never even alluded to in “BB” like Jimmy’s paranoid yet brilliant lawyer older brother played by Michael McKean giving the performance of a lifetime and Kim (Rhea Seehorn), Jimmy’s steely co-conspirator, love interest who surprisingly skirts the line of moral ambiguity.

On top of that, the showrunners flex their comedy nerd muscles by featuring Joe DeRosa, Josh Fadem, Mark Proksch, the Sklar Brothers and Roy Wood Jr in small roles. For the cinema nerds, classic film references abound and wildly creative shots like POV shots from the perspective of a bullet hole or drain pipe can be found in every episode. My only complaint is that some of the Salamanca B-story material can feel a bit procedural but the show’s mostly freewheeling, surprise you at every turn storytelling more than makes up for the occasional stodgy scene where two characters talk about what they’re going to do with their drug trade. I can’t wait until AMC announces when Season Six begins; this is my most anticipated release of 2022 (also, I have no idea what else is coming out in 2022).

-”Hits and Misses” by Simon Rich: Rich’s short stories are so funny, clever and readable that it’s almost as infuriating to read them as it is enjoyable. I don’t read books quickly but I tore through this one. At a scant 226 pages, Rich’s stories take simple premises like death coming for an elderly talent agent who convinces death that he’s right for a Scorsese picture and wringing them for all their worth. My favorites though were a) “Hands” about a monk determined to cut off his hands and prove himself the most pious of all the monks only to realize this was an act of hubris through lessons from a shallow princess; b) a writer whose wife is giving birth to a baby who is writing a book with a lot of buzz in the womb and c) a court jester who doesn’t have the self awareness to realize he’s never gotten a laugh. There really isn’t a stinker in the bunch. I often found myself dog-earing pages in the book so I could come back and reread his turns of phrase later. Once again, I do have one complaint though. In this case, it’s that Rich makes comedy writing look TOO easy.

Hope you have Labor Day off and if you don't enjoy reading this on the clock. You deserve it, kid

Comedy Stray Notes August 29, 2021

• I’ve heard one of the key tenets to TikTok success is that once you figure out your niche, you replicate what you’ve done by shaking up the ingredients to the formula you created. It sounds cheap but the idea has existed in comedy for ages; this is essentially the template for recurring characters on Saturday Night Live. So, having had a minor taste of success with a viral video two months ago, I wanted to see if I could recreate the popularity of my most viewed video and get the same level of engagement. Much to my surprise, this experiment mostly worked. Using the “joke every five seconds” format where I put a voiceover track over b-roll footage of offbeat images, I didn’t get quite the same response that I did the first time when I did this at the Holiday Inn Express. However, somehow 13,000 people viewed my 56-second faux ode to Times Square which is a lot more than the rest of the videos I’ve produced. 

I don’t know how or why these types of vids perform better than others I’ve made but I’ll take what I can get with my first ever “recurring bit.” If you’d like to see what this recurring bit I’ve been going on and on about is, take a look here.

• Forget YouTube; all the fun these days is on the Tok and the Gram. Here’s the two most fun shorts there I saw this week:

- Lindsay Lucido has one of the funniest Instagrams in the game poking fun at dates finding out that you do standup, frustrating notes male comics give post-show and the story of her most humbling moment in comedy. However, my favorite of all her bits is a recurring gag of hers where she has friends lip sync for her and the reveal that it’s (SPOILER) Lindsay at the end always works. Simple, universal, hilarious. I’ve linked the latest one here but you should really scroll and watch them all; they’re all fantastic in their own way.

- One of the greatest skills a comic needs to have is what I call “hot take radar.” When a major cultural event takes place, like say, the current milk crate craze, you have to see it differently than everyone else. Rather than going for the obvious angle, you need that “hot take radar” to find the joke no one is making. In this case, Dan Carney and Tre Stewart did just that for the milk crate challenge, building a sketch where they play the fictional owners of Crates & Crates, the company that was in the right place at the right time for the craze. The two share the smug aww shucks humility of startup founders and in the process send up entrepreneurs, milk crates and the ridiculousness of the trend they’re cashing in on. It’s only two minutes but I could have watched this for two hours.

• If you planted yourself in front of the internet for 100 years, I don’t think you’d run out of stuff to check out. Should you find yourself in this scenario, here’s a few things you can add to your queue:

“Together Together” (2021): This year’s most unconventional romcom pairing of Ed Helms and Patti Harrison may also be its most satisfying. In “Together Together,” the two play Matt, a 40-something, overbearing, lonely app developer on the hunt for a surrogate so he can be a father and Anna, the woman who will carry his child. They’re never truly romantically linked but end up sharing a bond that’s as sweet as it is critical of friendships of men in their 40s and women in their 20s. For a film with so little conflict because all the major characters mostly like each other, there’s a lot of understated tension bubbling beneath the surface evidenced through the leads’ loneliness and debates about the roles of a parent. In one particularly great scene, the Matt character scolds Anna for making an unhealthy choice at an Italian restaurant. She counters, “You shouldn’t get the carbonara since you’ll need to live longer to actually take care of the baby.” Savage.

It should also be noted that the creative team cast Harrison, a trans woman, as cisgendered to deliver the baby. It’s a nice touch and is tastefully never commented upon in the film. We’ve come a long way. Plus, don’t sleep on the supporting cast which was essentially an all star game for indie comedy featuring Julio Torres (who utters the immortal line, “We’ve shared a lot of cold stares” when asked if he’s met Helms’ Matt), Nora Dunn, Tig Notaro and Jo Firestone to name just a few. THE BEST GEN X/MILLENNIAL ANTI-ROMCOM ROMCOM I’VE SEEN (Streaming on Amazon for $2.99).

“Dave” Season Two (2021): I loved the breakout first season of Dave Burd AKA Lil Dicky’s show. It took six episodes for me to fully fall into its rhythms but once I did, I couldn’t wait to see what they’d do in Season Two. Now having seen it, I can confirm the creative team here impressively takes bigger swings while also going quieter and more self reflective. The season begins in Korea with Dave collaborating with a K-Pop star and ends with him re-evaluating how he’s treated everyone in his life. In between, there are meditations on how one acts differently in front of different types of friends, what it would be like to flirt with Doja Cat over text and how little we know about our own parents. It should also be noted that the show pulls off the impressive feat of making each episode feel like a standalone (the bar mitzvah, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, marketing start up origin story, and Rick Rubin flotation tank episodes to name just a few) while also existing within the show’s overarching narrative. 

All that being said, the most fun joke in the series can be found when indefatigable hype man Gata shouts out influencers on his social while they shout him out at the same time making for an unintelligible mess of the algorithm’s echo chamber. THE RARE SECOND SEASON THAT IMPROVES UPON A FANTASTIC FRESHMAN YEAR (Streaming on Hulu).

Neal Brennan on Working It Out: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again- Neal Brennan is appointment podcast listening. Of the countless times I’ve tuned into a conversation in which he was the guest, he’s never once repeated himself and has been totally present. In this edition, Neal admits that he pivoted from straight stand up to the gimmicky “Three Mics” style from his Netflix special because it’s a less competitive space than those who are just doing regular, good old fashioned, meat and potatoes jokes. He also lets us common folk in and lets us know that celebrities are known for giving gifts to one another while hanging out via an amusing Ellen Degeneres/Portia De Rossi hangout anecdote. However, what’s best about this episode are Neal’s on the fly joke writing abilities on full display. He riffs out a bit about how college should be paid by students having to listen to ads a la a Spotify or subscription based service rather than tuition. Brilliant. Funny and practical. Then, toward the end he effortlessly punches up a goofy Birbiglia mac and cheese joke that needs work. Interestingly, Neal reflects quite a bit on how he’s so into comedy that he will sadly probably think about the job on his deathbed and then also added that being a fan of comedy means when you read biographies and consume entertainment about the entertainment, it’s no vacation. You’re just reading about work. He’s articulated something I’ve thought for years but could never put into words. That’s the exact reason why I listen to him talk every chance I get.

Hugh Grant on WTF: While listening to WTF for the past few months, this episode was constantly referred to in other episodes as one of the best. Having now listened, the hype is well-earned. Hugh Grant is a funny son of a gun willing to entertain even after a long day’s work on set overseas. In this chat, the once aspiring character turned accidental leading man tells stories I’d never heard about playing to crowds of just ten audience members at a massive theater in Edinburgh that his manager rented and how he was often criticized in “The Undoing” for faking emotions but now that he’s found love late in life, it’s the first time he’s ever accessed portraying this feeling on camera to what have been mostly mixed results. He even added that he faked it in all those romantic comedies so many years ago. This is a pure delight and an interesting glimpse inside the mind of a gifted actor and student of the craft.

• Finally, thanks to my beautiful wife Anna Paone, I had the distinct honor of catching a Dragonfly production this past weekend in New Jersey. The prolific theater troupe put on four summer plays and each one had its own distinct flavor that made it feel wholly unique from the last. This final show, the very funny “Popcorn Falls” directed by Catherine LaMoreaux, tells the tale of a town about to go under that can only be saved by putting on a play. It’s a fun story but what makes this show especially special are the varied performances from Chris Grant and Tim O’Connor who each play multiple parts with chameleonic ease. At times, Grant would disappear behind a partition only to return seconds later as a new character in a new costume with completely new body language. Both players give star turns that elevate the material into goofy, madcap lunacy.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, Dragonfly is putting on an encore performance next weekend at the DuCret Center for the Arts in Plainfield, NJ. You can find $10.00 tickets here.