Comedy Stray Notes June 20, 2022

• It’s ye olde Comedy Stray Notes. You may or may not have noticed that I’ve been on hiatus for three weeks because creative projects outside of typing half-baked thoughts on Sunday nights have excitingly presented themselves this month.

Rather than overwhelm and inundate you with three weeks worth of CSN (that’s Comedy Stray Notes abbreviated for the uninitiated), I’m going to ease us back into the fold with a fairly light edition of the ol’ CSN (that’s Comedy Stray Notes abbreviated, if you already forgot from above).

Then, the next few weeks, we’ll continue playing catch up.

Sounds like a plan to me.

So, here goes:

• Anna Paone and I are now less than a month away from baby. The little being in her stomach kicks and we thought it was time to build the young one a nursery in our house.

So, whenever the two of us need handiwork help, we call up our pal Fluke Human. Dude can help build cribs and changing stations with the best of them. Over the course of a few hours, the three of us kicked back with a few Cranberry Lime Schweppes seltzers and transformed a small room in the apartment into a full-on baby sanctuary.

Even though it was exhausting, I had an idea for a TikTok that I had thought of while running that morning that was a sequel of sorts to the very first sketch I ever filmed at Arizona State 15 (!) years ago. I asked Fluke who had just worked all day with us and Anna who was a good seven months pregnant at the time if they wanted to film.

Both of them are cool and said, “Uhh, hell yeah.”

We walked down the block and fleshed out my half-baked (a common theme in my writing) premise. Anna and Fluke fleshed out the formless, scriptless concept into something that would work on the Tok timeline.

I gotta say, this 51-second video is pretty dang funny now and worth a look if you haven’t seen it yet.

*Note: To be fair, I have to give credit where it’s due: this puppy was heavily inspired by the comedy stylings of Steph Mark. Once you see the Tok and Steph’s sketch here, you’ll get it.

• The past three weeks has had a treasure trove of stellar internet content. Here’s everything I saw that deserves a click, view, scroll or laugh react emoji from readers like you.

- We can all agree that startups need to be taken down a peg. Corporations acting like they have their employees’ best interests at heart while treating them in humiliating and dehumanizing ways is definitely ripe for satire.

And not many people write better contemporary satire than Django Gold. 

His most recent sketch, “The Hive,” centers around a fictional independent contractor company “BuzzGrind” that’s been around for five months and is already violating human rights by deducting pay from their “worker bees” and rewarding them with bathroom breaks. 

Meanwhile, politicians they label as “evil” threaten their attempts to “get that honey.” All they want to do is make lots of money and exploit their workers. Is that so wrong?

Featuring inspired performances by some of New York’s best comics like Mary Houlihan, Talib Babb and Ashley Hamilton as well as spot-on direction from Tynan Delong, this five-minute piece is essential viewing for anyone who has ever come to the realization that there’s something bubbling under Uber and TaskRabbit’s shiny, greedy surface.

- My comrade Sam Zelitch does not stand for BS. That’s kind of his thing (whereas I like to candy coat everything out of fear. That’s kind of my thing).

Now, he’s sharing candid on-brand hot takes via his stylish, new newsletter “SMELLS LIKE.” Already two issues strong, Sam dives into topics that don’t seem pressing—the latest ”Jurassic Park” or “Star Wars’” rabid fanbase— and makes them feel like the center of the universe. 

By exposing false advertising or how people shouldn’t take silly sci-fi movies so seriously, Sam chips away at these frivolous topics to show that there is some serious, real world BS going on right in front of our very eyes no matter where you look.

No BS from me here: you should totally sign up for this weekly quick read. You just might see the world in a completely different way.

Plus, sometimes Sam sends gift cards to readers. Now, that’s a genuine, honest to goodness BS-free reason to sign up for anything right there.

- In March 2006, my brother, two classmates, a chaperone and I flew to Chengdu, China for two weeks as part of our high school’s exchange program. My international high school paired me up with a funny, talented host sister named Hu Ding Ding.

Her family graciously took care of me for two weeks and we sporadically kept in touch over the years.

Then, in 2013, when I moved to NYC, Ding Ding was already here.

We met up, she came to a few of my stand up shows and I was constantly wowed by her complex yet whimsical illustrations.

Now, nine (!) years later, Ding Ding has entered the comedy game. Unsurprisingly, she’s a natural. The clips of her at Gotham Comedy Club and the Comic Strip show a poise and ease onstage that most new comics take years to establish. Plus, her jokes. They’re gold! Real misdirects.

Seriously, check out her “Plant based diet” clip. It’s a real chunk that’s fully fleshed out.

Already can’t wait for her 2025 special.

- “America’s Got Talent” is an oddball 21st-century version of “The Gong Show” that gets a) overly sentimental toward contestants with sob story backgrounds like most modern reality shows while also b) being unnecessarily cruel like the original “Gong Show.”

I guess that’s what Simon Cowell’s whole deal is.

On a recent episode, musical comedy wunderkind Anthony Kapfer recently appeared on the show to perform an ironic, meta ditty about why he doesn’t like comedy songs and before he even has a chance to show off his skills, they vote him off.

Thankfully, Anthony put the whole catchy song on YouTube where he deconstructs the trappings of the classic “comedy song.” Had Cowell and his fellow judges had the patience to hear him out, maybe they would have enjoyed his comedy stylings as much as audiences who actually get the joke do.

- These days, every show is labeled as part of the “Golden Age of Television.”

Even for someone as hyperbolic as me, it’s a bit much.

Anyhow, Chandler Dean and Andy Vega neatly spoof this concept with their brilliant, twisty TikTok about a “3D Pipes screensaver.” Here, Chandler treats the pipes with all the reverence and respect that one might reserve for “Mad Men” or “The Sopranos” building on all the tropes of TV fandom from podcasts to subreddits to “In conversations” at the 92nd Street Y.

Best of all, if you stay until the end, you’ll be treated to a twist worthy of those bendy pipes themselves.

Now, this is golden age prestige TikTok content.

• Every so often, I dip my toes into Criterion’s two-week free trial to mix up my viewing habits. Yeah, I could watch Hulu and Netflix’s endless library but every now and then, I want to see some “Capital A” ART.

Also, it’s free (for two weeks).

Here are two of the three movies I peeped over the past few weeks that should justify a free subscription (saving one for next week).

“Daytrippers” (1996): After seeing “Superbad” in theaters the first week of college (Mill Avenue Theater back to back nights, baby), I went right home and Googled the director Greg Mottola.

Other than a few TV credits, at the time, he’d only directed one feature. “The Daytrippers.”

Ever since that day, it had been on my list of movies to see but it was so hard to track down. I type the title into every streaming service I can, hoping to find this little indie film with a cast featuring ‘90s ringers (Parker Posey, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schrieber, Anne Meara and I’m just getting started) and have little to no luck.

Finally, Criterion came through. Took long enough.

What I discovered was a quietly funny, very New York tale of suspicion, family and perspective.

Here, our leads, Eliza (Hope Davis) and Louis (Stanley Tucci), appear to have the perfect marriage. They reside in a big home outside the city, share banter and get intimate within the first few minutes of the film.

However, while cleaning the next morning, Eliza spots a love letter tucked away in a corner. It’s an ancient poem.

The wheels start spinning and before you know it, the family is heading to the City to confront Louis at work to try and catch him in the act. On the way, Eliza’s sister’s (Posey) boyfriend (Schrieber) summarizes his pretentious novel about a man with a dog’s head that only confuses the family more and more. He also drops lines of wisdom like, ““The average person knows more about the psychopath on the news than their own spouse.”

Once they make it into the city, Louis is impossible to find.

After a health scare, the family barges their way into a strangers’ apartment to recover. Once they leave the generous father/son host’s place, we’re treated to the movie’s finest scene where the group over-compliments the hosts in the car until they begin quietly nitpicking their place and personalities.

Incredibly relatable. I’ve never seen a movie that got that experience so right—gratefulness turned criticism is something you can only do with family.

Final verdict: This is a fantastic, quiet comedy punctuated with a few hilarious loud parents vacuuming early in the morning scenes.

Full of surprise, commentary on the ‘90s literary world, middle-income and middle-age malaise, infidelity and sisterhood, I totally get why Apatow and Rogen handed the keys over to Mottola to direct their high school laughfest a decade later.

“Topsy Turvy” (1999): A British musical period drama does not sound ripe for comedy.

Yet, I found myself smirking quite a bit at Mike Leigh’s stuffy, nearly three-hour Gilbert and Sullivan semi-biopic.

If you strip away the late 1800s production design and musicals, you’ll find a gentle spoofing of narcissistic creators, manipulative agents and fragile performers who were somewhat self-aware of queasy cultural appropriation even way back in 1884. 

The movie starts slowly (by my estimation) but takes flight once the sour Gilbert is forced to see a Japanese arts and crafts exhibit by his fun-loving wife. Although he had no desire to attend, once he sees the rich culture, he decides, “Now’s my time to rip this off” which he and Sullivan do with the creation of their musical “Mikado.”

I don’t intend to spoil the film’s finale but the conversation at the end between Gilbert and his wife is a heartbreaker once we realize that she’s the true brains behind the operation; Gilbert doesn’t have an original thought in his head. He simply took credit for his wife’s wit and storytelling skill. Yet, she’ll never get to tell the stories— they’ll always be credited to Gilbert and Sullivan.

Final verdict: A boisterous relic of 19th century culture where one could be insensitive, culturally appropriate and get away with it.

“The Appointments of Dennis Jennings” (1988): Did you know Steven Wright wrote and starred in an Oscar-winning short film alongside…Rowan Atkinson AKA Mr. Bean?

Had no idea.

And it’s just sitting on YouTube waiting to be watched.

Wright’s 29-minute short (I guess anything under 40 is “short”) is a gas predating “Simpsons” and “Family Guy” surreal cutaways while simultaneously paying homage to Woody’s insecurity and Mel’s goofiness.

Yet, that was just one small element of Oscar winner about an anxious patient (Wright), his impatient therapist (Rowan Atkinson) and gossipy girlfriend (Laurie Metcalfe). Here, Wright spills his guts to his shrink through poetic musings like “I tried to daydream but my mind kept wandering” while Atkinson couldn’t care less. Mid-session, he has a handyman visit the office, writes his grocery list and finally doodles until this sends our protagonist over the edge.

For Wright fans, there’s a lot to love here.

My only gripe is that I wish we lived in a world where this was adapted into a feature. Either way, I’ll happily settle for this lost artifact and totally get why the darkly comic “The Appointments of Doctor Jennings” won its well-deserved Oscar. 

• Finally, in a last-ditch attempt to belatedly address Father’s Day, I’d like to spotlight the trailer for the upcoming…

“I Love My Dad” (2022): This one-minute teaser trailer starring Patton Oswalt as a dad trying to reconnect with his son in an unorthodox manner is going to end up becoming the movie we’re all talking about come fall.

Don’t see it with your dad though.

Too weird.

You’ll get what I mean after you check it out.

• Well, this CSN (Comedy Stray Notes if you forgot again) didn’t exactly turn out short as promised. That just ain’t me.

See you on the floppy

Comedy Stray Notes May 30, 2022

• In indie film productions, whoever is in charge has to wear a lot of hats.

Not literal hats (although directors do like berets lol).

No, oftentimes, you need to write, storyboard, shot list, find locations, direct, produce, finance, set design, bring equipment, feed the crew and edit.

The real dream is to wear only one of these “hats” and really focus on your task at hand for best results.

Still, we all do it for the love of the game, mom and dad (they often wonder why I do it).

Most recently, my good friend Barak Ziv made his directorial debut with the excellent five-minute sketch “The Guest Spot” where he wore all the hats AND to top it off, also starred in the dang thing.

That’s no easy feat.

Anyhow, ol’ Barak made it look easy, telling the funny story of a comic who takes a guest spot at Stand Up NY way too seriously which flusters the jerky show producer (that would be me) and then nicely escalates the tension in absurd ways. 

It’s a nice, nerdy, “inside baseball” parody of delusional new comics, rude gatekeepers and wraps it all up with a clever twist ending.

Sure, I might be biased because I’m in this sketch but I think it’s a slam dunk. Give it a look-see.

• Anna Paone and I are less than t-minus 50 days away from Operation BABY.

The two of us are trying to simultaneously take it easy and get in as many non-infant having activities as we can because come July 15, those days are over.

All of this is a long-winded way to say that I participated in Harmon Leon’s wild stand-up themed game show “Joke-E-Oke” this past Thursday.

Harmon’s show takes a simple concept—karaoke for jokes— and executes the idea with projectors, a teleprompter and judges.

If you can’t tell, the theme of this week’s Stray Notes is producers putting in tons of effort to see their visions through.

In the first round of the show, I impersonated Gilbert Gottfried (I give myself a 4/10; the judges gave me a 3) and Seinfeld (my Jerry is better than my Gilbert) and advanced to the second round against two other semifinalists. There, I recited Hedberg material, hitting the last syllable of punchlines after a laid back setup just like ol’ Mitch would. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it any further than that.

That was totally fine by me though. In the finals, the last two standing have to trade rapid fire Don Rickles putdowns at one another which is way more fun to watch than take part in.

Now having been a part of it, I can safely say that there is no other show quite like “Joke E Oke.” There’s no other gig in New York that allows one to pay homage to comic greats while also letting you stretch your own impersonation wings. It’s a fantastic monthly show and one you should definitely seek out if you’re burnt out on meat and potatoes straight stand up eight-comic lineups.

*Side note: At the show, Tom Nemec channeled George Carlin so precisely, it felt like he was in the room with us. Goosebumps.

• If Dan Perlman and Kevin Iso’s “Flatbush Misdemeanors” isn’t already part of your comedy diet, you need to change that immediately.

Their compact, naturalistic ten-episode first season is a master class in storytelling, world building, complex three-dimensional character creation, pointed social commentary and most importantly hard jokes.

The understated series is set into motion by a simple act that reverberates throughout the entire season—when artist/food delivery man Kevin leans into a bottle of drug dealer Drew’s (the electric Hassan Johnson) lean, he becomes indebted to him. Lean ain’t cheap.

Dan, playing an unflappable and flustered teacher, does everything he can to help while also trying to control his middle school class and pursue a romantic relationship with his school’s principal.

While there isn’t a bad episode in the bunch, I’d like to spotlight my favorite scene in the series and make a case for why everyone should jump on this show before Season Two drops in a few weeks. 

In episode six, Dan meets with his therapist (Yamaneika Saunders) over video chat. She is so obviously bored with his mildly dramatic life that she insensitively roasts and solves all of his problems like they’re nothing. Then, for the remainder of the session, she asks to be taken to the much juicier fight happening next door.

This brilliant scene plays on the fear that our therapists will find us dull and weak in the funniest, smartest way possible. After I saw it, I was bowled over. Yamaneika’s startling performance that put into perspective just how basic Dan’s problems were was so relatable that it ran through my head all week. That’s what the best comedy does- changes your worldview ever so slightly.

Bravo. Season Two can’t come soon enough. 

Final verdict: “Flatbush Misdemeanors” is worth the price of a Showtime subscription alone (Streaming on Showtime. Obviously).

• New Jersey gets a bad rap from New Yorkers. The state is often referred to as a punchline but if you give the Garden State a real chance, you’ll find that many funny, original voices are fine-tuning their talents there as well.

Exhibit A: This week, I came across Shaquan Yates and Di’quanne Yates’ web series “That’s My Brother” where they pack multiple seasons of story into Garden State flavored ten-minute bursts.

Over the course of six episodes, we see siblings reconnect, relationships fall apart and board games taken super seriously. Overall, there’s a nice balance of melodrama, humor, original hip hop spat on the spot, cool camera tricks and New Jersey flavor.

The show’s creators compare their season to “The Wayans Brothers” and “How High” but that’s doing a disservice to the show’s gonzo originality and indie film charms.

You can easily binge the entire run- the Yates put together a YouTube playlist for your viewing pleasure.

• Like everyone else alive, I loved “Breaking Bad.”Like a few hangers on, I enjoy “Better Call Saul” as well. To me, it’s a “Lost”-like Rube Goldberg device of a show tinkering with audience expectations, building to something grander and more satisfying in the end than how each season began with puzzle piece bread crumbs teasing what’s to come. 

This most recent first half of the final season was a true humdinger that slowly but surely told a quiet story with loud exclamation points in a few key moments.

However, I’m really a fair weather “Better Call Saul” fan. A pedestrian.

My wife, on the other hand, is the real deal. She listens to podcasts, trolls Reddit for fan theories and follows all of the actors’ Instagrams with a rabid curiosity. She catches every small detail, piece of trivia and “Breaking Bad” connection with a hawk-like attention to detail.

Therefore, I asked her to contribute her thoughts/hot takes and she charitably agreed to do so. Now, without further ado, I present to you the first ever “Stray Notes Guest Segment” written by Anna Paone. Enjoy:

I’m thrilled to be writing my first guest segment on Stray Notes!

When Matt first suggested we watch “Better Call Saul” during quarantine, I was reluctant since it wasn’t my choice.  However, I soon grew engrossed by the dark humor, scam montages, beautiful New Mexico cinematography, and evocative look at early-aughts law firms in this “Breaking Bad” prequel.  “Better Call Saul” traces Saul Goodman’s journey from scheming nail-salon lawyer Jimmy McGill into Albuquerque underworld consigliere.  Meanwhile, the show also depicts Mike Ehrmantraut’s prequel arc and, perhaps more importantly, introduces compelling new characters, such as Nacho Varga, an aspiring criminal kingpin with a sensitive heart, and Kim Wexler, ambitious Albuquerque lawyer who may or may not be the voice of reason in Jimmy’s life.  Not only did I dress as Kim for Halloween (and asked Matt to dress as Jimmy), but I took us on an extensive tour of locations both famous and obscure while in ABQ for a wedding (the bar where the lead couple scam Ken Wins, anyone?).

[SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.]  Now caught up with the series, I eagerly awaited the premiere of its sixth and final season.  I was not disappointed.  I had never been quite as invested in the cartel storyline, but the show efficiently and emotionally dispensed with one of its key loose ends three episodes in.  (I read a theory suggesting that this was so Mark Margolis, who plays Hector Salamanca, could reduce his COVID exposure.  Check out his adorable Instagram!)  Then showrunner Peter Gould and company turned their lens on the further scheming and possible moral decay of Jimmy and Kim as they attempt to take down their sometimes-toxic-but-probably-not-that-bad erstwhile boss, Howard Hamlin.  This leads to unintended consequences and, in the mid-season finale, brings the cartel and legal sides of their lives together in a devastating way.

Like most fans of this show, I love the complicated, resourceful, eloquent Kim Wexler, who, early in the series, seemed to be the typical girlfriend who would pull Jimmy back from the brink and maybe leave him when his schemes became too much.  “BCS” turned this dynamic on its head when it became clear that Kim was both intellectually and romantically turned on by Jimmy’s complex plans, and hoped to use them to fund her pro-bono law practice.  What she does in season six is not right, but if you’ve followed the character, it is understandable.  I didn’t follow “Breaking Bad” while it was airing, but she’s certainly more sympathetic (in my mind) than Walt.  The mid-season finale leaves us with several tantalizing questions: Can Kim be redeemed?  Will a key sin of omission prove too much for her marriage?  And, as viewers have been asking the whole time, what is her ultimate fate?

Finally, as mentioned, I watched “Breaking Bad” some years after it aired, and binged the first five seasons of “Better Call Saul” in a rush.  However, the COVID- and Odenkirk-health-induced hiatus led me to seek out the official “Better Call Saul” insider podcast as well as fan writings and theories.  I feel now like I better understand the Hitchcockian close-ups and leading shots from Gould et al., the Easter eggs, the hints, the artifacts and the symbolism.  This certainly has enriched my viewing experience.  I’m sad that there are only six episodes left, but I know the denouement is in good hands, and I can’t wait to see how it all ends.  Mike Ehrmentrout says, in a line ostentatiously highlighted in one of the trailers, “Whatever happens next, it's not gonna go down the way you think it is.”  Or, as playwright and memoirist Helene Hanff wrote–in a line I often invoke in my personal life–“You persisted in assuming there were two possibilities and there were always three: the two you thought of and the one that happened.”

Editor’s note: Yes, my wife is a much more gifted writer than me. I had just as much fun reading that recap as you did.

• “Rescue Rangers” (2022): It’s not oft discussed but the most fun subgenre of the 21st century is the self-aware, super-meta fourth-wall breaking animated film. It started with “Shrek” relentlessly taking fairytales to task and continued on with “Lego Movie,” “Wreck It Ralph” and now the action-packed, toon/CGI showbiz satire packaged for kids “Rescue Rangers.” 

In this goofy yet sometimes grounded flick, we begin at a “FanCon,” where Dale (Samberg) has undergone CGI surgery to appear more like  a modern ‘toon alongside other less popular characters like “Ugly Sonic” (who you may remember as the Sonic that the internet rejected a few years back) shilling merch for nostalgic fans.

Dale is a mover and shaker living in the past while Chip (Mulaney) has forged ahead with his life and sadly taken up working in insurance. The two fell out after Dale pursued a series— “Double O Dale”‚— on his own.

They’re reunited when their friend Monterey Jack (Eric Bana?!) is kidnapped by baddies, lured in by cheese, as cartoon mice often are (Anna pointed out that this may be a sly nod to Mulaney’s history with addiction- she’s much more perceptive than me). The gang is reunited and have to use their long dormant skills from the series so long ago. 

What separates this fairly standard storyline are the never-ending jokes (my favorite running gag are all the billboards with fake movies in the background like “Fast and Furious Babies”), innovative ideas (the “animation imaginer” that demonstrates what one would look like in every single animation style is an Instagram filter waiting to happen) and its pro-Disney/anti-bootlegging message. Our bad guys, led by a now grown-up Peter Pan (Will Arnett doing his best Will Arnett), take minor figures in animation and sell them to overseas production companies to create knockoff versions of their original works. 

By telling the same “the gang teams up to save the day!” story but with a slightly different meta bent for its villains, the movie becomes much more memorable and digestible.

Final verdict: There are so many in-jokes here that might not just fly over kids’ heads but their parents’ heads too. This is a DENSE wall to wall joke machine. Case in point: there’s a three-second throwaway gag where Rogen’s character interacts with all of the other animated Seth Rogen characters. It’s brilliant but as an audience member you have to quickly clock what’s going on and remember, “Oh, yeah, he was Pumbaa too.” 

What I’m saying is, this may warrant rewarding re-watches (Streaming on Disney+).

• Although SNL is on hiatus for a good three-four months, they’re still quietly releasing “cut for time” sketches. No idea if this practice will continue on throughout the summer, but if you need your fix, they dropped two this past week. Here’s a quick summary of both:

-“ESPN First Take NBA” is your classic sports roundtable talk show featuring huge personality Stephen A. Smith (Chris Redd giving an impressive 5000%), contrarian, understated Kendrick Perkins (Kenan Thompson doing Kenan Thompson) and overly New York-y Michael Rappaport (Natasha Lyonne doing Natasha Lyonne) debating every single topic that comes into play. They start small arguing whether or not it’s a “good morning” and then heighten by going back and forth trading barbs about Steph Curry and Luka Doncic. 

Hidden within this fairly standard sketch though is a true comedic gold nugget when Rappaport describes what being a Knicks fan means. Never have I heard the pitfalls of sports fandom described so hilariously, concisely and accurately all within the span of two lines.

So, there is that.

“Cigarette Show,” another talk show, stars Lyonne and Chloe Fineman as two nurses making the most of their seven-minute smoke break alongside their doctor sidekick (Bowen Yang) who has a keyboard yet never plays the thing. There are fun jokes like “We give cigarette smokers a voice, which unfortunately sounds like this” and only gets better once Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph appear as French tourists who point out the different ways Americans smoke. There’s a lot of charm here and I’m bummed that this never saw the light of day.

Maybe it was cut because they’re semi-glorifying smoking cigs? Who knows? Either way, there are solid laughs here and it’s worth your five minutes.

• Nothing made me laugh harder this week than the completely straight-faced, incredibly cheesy “Bezos” trailer. 

Yep, it’s a Jeff Bezos biopic featuring Kevin Sorbo in a small role and is trying so hard to be “The Social Network” but hilariously hits all the wrong notes unintentionally making this look like the funniest movie of the year. 

If you’ve always dreamed of an unironic movie where one of the world’s richest human beings attempts to portray their greedy selves as a hero who “just wanted to sell books to the world,” look no further.

Ironically, this looks like it was made on a nothing budget.

Wanna know what’s doubly ironic? If you or I see this, we’re just putting more money in Bezos’ pockets. So, you do have to wrestle with that moral quandary.

• Now that it’s nice out, I wanted to share that I’ve been writing about how to best buy tickets for concerts, comedy shows and theater for NJ.com for the past nine months. So, if you want to go to a show of any kind and don’t know where to purchase seats, check out my articles- I’ve already done the homework for you (plus, there’s a $20 promo code in there too if you needed any extra motivation). 

I recently shared a list of the 33 best comedy tours this year that you might find helpful.

• Happy Memorial Day weekend. Easily the best weekend of the year. Now, go outside and scroll Instagram there

Comedy Stray Notes May 23, 2022

• For the 47th time, the SNL season has come to a close. I would argue that this 21-episode run was probably in the top quarter of the 47 seasons— by no means was it the best but this year will certainly be remembered as a solid, steady installment with many, many highs.

In fact, I’d give S47 an even higher ranking but the final two episodes crash landed on such shaky footing that I’ve gotta demote it just a tad.

This final episode, hosted by Natasha Lyonne (why?) was one of those duds that lowered the score card. Yes, it was a sentimental entry with fitting goodbyes to a number of tenured cast members (McKinnon, Aidy, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney if you missed it) but only one sketch was a true-blue, red-blooded classic by my estimation.

With that being said, here’s my season’s finale scorecard.

Home runs:

“PSA” ad: This may be my favorite sketch of the season. Every so often, SNL drops a fastball down the middle that’s so sharp, it shakes me to my comedy nerd core. That’s exactly what this commercial parody did here. All of these things “stupid” people do like open bags incorrectly and ask “OK, what’s going on in this movie?” are invisible habits of mine I haven’t truly identified or owned for years. To be seen and learn something new about yourself is the gold standard (even if it’s negative). Then, the twist midway through the sketch added an extra dash of potency.

Triples:

“Final Encounter” Cold Open: I never quite understood the hype around this cult classic recurring bit. McKinnon’s frazzled, cool as a cucumber weirdo who had increasingly unusual sexual experiences with aliens seemed like the most obvious rule of threes gag of all time. However, this final go-round where McKinnon’s Rafferty character referred to pubes as “a hipster’s beard stuffed in an N95 mask” and then is sent off into space hit the sentimental sweet spot just right. A touching, bawdy tribute to one of the all-time greats. 

Weekend Update: No “jokes written by one anchor for the other” like Jost and Che have done in years’ past but this was still another pointed, laugh-filled gag grab bag roasting white people dressing as minorities for Halloween, Arby’s and baby formula hoarders. You know, the usual.

What was special was that this episode had triple (“triples are best”) guest correspondents- a true rarity. Moffatt did his fun but standard “Guy who just bought a boat” yet again (perhaps his final episode too?), Aidy and Bowen got laughs as their breakout trendsetter characters then closed with a poignant, voice cracking tribute to Aidy’s decade on the show and finally Pete’s wisecracking, tossed off commentary that subtly showed “hey, if you don’t show up every week, you’re going to be rusty.” No real gut busters here but the sentimental sum here was greater than its parts for this old softie.

Doubles: 

Natasha Lyonne monologue: Lyonne’s shtick wears thin after a while for me but her one-woman show-esque monologue coupled with impressions from her ex-bf Armisen and current friend Maya Rudolph had a ramshackle, confessional vibe to it reminiscent of ‘70s era hosts. Plus, points for vintage footage of a young Lyonne on “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”

Mr. Dooley: Full disclosure, I passed out during this sketch much like Mr. Dooley himself. I was so sleepy that Anna had to explain it to me during the commercials and I fell asleep mid-explanation. When I finally caught it on Sunday, I appreciated the odd, nonsensical logic of a trio of women in a “9 to 5” knockoff trying to “Weekend At Bernie’s” their boss. Ridiculous physical bits aplenty, intentionally crude lame jokes and a button that defies explanation? It shouldn’t work but it does. Credit where it’s due here too- the passed out Lyonne not reacting to being tickled was a master stroke.

“Women’s Commercial:” The final sketch of the season. I was hoping for something a bit more in line with Kristen Wiig’s “Ruby Tuesday” goodbye from her last episode but this sendoff was fine. Funny, if a bit forgettable. Kate and Aidy shill gray pigtails for middle-aged ladies name-dropping accessories and shared boyfriends (Mooney, in one of his best moments of the season). There wasn’t any true closure here that all us fans wanted, yet, the laughs were plentiful. If only they acknowledged the situation a bit more I’d give it a higher grade.

Singles:

“After High School” pretape: Everything about this “end of ‘The Sandlot’” inspired sketch should have landed hard with me. Somehow, it mostly fell totally flat. The “this person stormed the capital on January 6” and “all these other grisly things happened to my classmates” joke has been done better before when the show parodied the infamous HBO “Going Clear” documentary years ago. The dark reveal that a sinister classmate was behind most of these gruesome acts was less comedic than intended, at least for me. 

*The joke about valedictorian Heidi Gardner finishing last in her class at Harvard was very, very good. So good, I have to mention it.

Strike outs:

“‘50s baseball broadcast:” Baseball announcers are ripe for comedy. Dudes having forced conversation with each other for three hours every day on television? Potential gold there. A bit about an announcer being hopped up on methamphetamines? Yawn. In addition to going long and underusing James Austin Johnson, this was a real whiff. No idea how this made it past the table read.

“Summer Gig:” No. No. No. Goofy, joke-free sketches that glide by on characters introducing random traits have to go. This, in particular, felt as if it belonged in an episode from ten years ago. While we’re at it, let’s retire this format.

Cut for Time: 

“Forgot About Lorne” music video: Pete’s final music video didn’t make the live show. A true shocker considering nothing grabs ratings like…anything he does on the show. His earnest but mocking tribute to Lorne was a bit of real fan service that was certainly superior to half of the sketches here. As icing on the cake, there’s a heckuva cameo here too making its cut for time status all the more baffling.

• Ol’ daddy-o (that’s me. I’m ol’ daddy-o), participated in not one, but two pilot readings this week. Future showrunners Caroline Memnon and Teesha Nelson/Richard Tower/Chris Beasley both generously cast me in their respective pilots “Corporate Outsider” and “BIBO” AKA “Breathe In, Breathe Out” and each brought something new to the table.

“Corporate Outsider” kicks off with a bit of Caroline’s stand up comedy before taking us inside the world of corporate law. Memnon guides us through a world I’d never experienced and made it feel familiar, funny and real. A great draft. Plus, I played six (!) characters including Ricky Ricardo during a dream sequence. I’d say I was just as good as Javier Bardem.

In the other corner, Nelson/Tower/Beasley tightly tell the story of Shelby, an unqualified startup girlboss who struggles managing her clueless staff and making a move on her office crush (played by ol’ daddy-o; that’s me in case you forgot). Anna Paone (my wife, in case you forgot) portrayed my character’s vapid, influencer fiancee as an over the top ditz who is secretly smarter than everyone in the room. Although this was just a quick reading, Anna easily gave one of my favorite performances I’ve seen her deliver here. Get yourself a girl who can constantly impress- that’s what she does for me.

• As I move further and further away from the stand up space, I find myself increasingly watching more and more stand up TikTok content. While the extended bits, crowd works and roast battles are all great, my favorite content is regularly Chanel Ali’s intoxicating nightly comedy recaps where she spells out how much she made at each gig and tells us about each and every room she performs in matter of factly. Sure, I love jokes but it’s more fun to see what a night of comedy in NYC is really like for a real seasoned vet.

• A tip of the hat to Rob Rego for turning Grove 34 from a dream into a reality. Every comic talks of opening their own club or events space but no one ever actually follows through. If you’re not familiar with the Astoria-based space, Rob walks you through what his club has to offer to the community in his new seven-minute video. In the final 90 seconds, he takes it to the next level quickly cutting together footage to create a speedy montage that showcases all of the cool stuff that’s already happened during the club’s short existence. I’ll be honest- it gave me goosebumps while watching at home. Comedy is alive and well. You just have to be there in person to get the true effect.

• Steven Rogers is the pro’s pro. Dude oozes old school pure joke writing craft while also straddling the anxious millennial lane at the same time. His style and content complemented each other particularly well when he performed on James Corden a few weeks back. 

His polished set covered wide-ranging topics like his own insecurity and how he digs tough women while delivering closer-level lines like, “I make my eyes wider while I look for things in the cabinet to see more.” This set is a punchline-heavy win.

“Atlanta” season three (2022): Donald Glover’s brash, satirical, appointment viewing half-hour program did more with ten episodes than most shows do with ten seasons.

This year, the creative team played with the medium and strayed away from or lovable main characters (Earn- Donald Glover, Paper Boi- Brian Tyree Henry, Darius- LaKeith Stanfield) to try their hand at a modern “Twilight Zone” where they take aim squarely at well-meaning white viewers such as myself.

In five standalone episodes, “Atlanta” addresses racial relations and points a mirror directly at their audience putting white characters at the center of their stories. It’s an incredibly effective technique. 

“Three Slaps,” the season premiere, paints a picture of a well-meaning kid who unfairly gets in trouble at school and home. When his mom willingly allows him to take up with hyper-liberal white foster parents, he finds himself and the other kids he’s staying with picking cotton. It’s a bold and shocking turn but one that snaps you right up from the comfort of your couch to really see “white saviors” doing more harm than good.

Later in the season, “The Big Payback” imagines a modern day America where descendants of slave owners are told to pay reparations for their ancestors’ past transgressions. It may be the best, most pointed half hour of television this century. An uncomfortable exercise highlighting that liberalism exists only until there’s a price tag. Justin Bartha, playing the lead, squirms as a character who just wants to enjoy his comfortable existence and ignore his family’s past until it comes knocking at his door.

Jordan Temple’s “Trini 2 De Bone” shines a light and humanizes the unspoken American tradition of hiring a maid/nanny to essentially parent your child. However, when that nanny keels over prematurely, the family learns so much more about her attending her funeral. That, by essentially raising their kid (as well as Chet Hanks- what a freaking genius choice), she missed out on spending quality time with her own sons and daughters.

Final verdict: “Atlanta” knows America has a long way to go. Heck, they show that the whole world has a long way to go too in their canonical, international episodes starring our leads that say, “Hey, racism exists everywhere in different ways.” This season is a huge step toward educating its audience. Myself definitely included. Essential entertainment.

“Zola” (2021): One of the many mildly upsetting byproducts of the pandemic is that loads of smart, independent movies were dumped onto streaming platforms like they were glorified YouTube videos without much fanfare.

Unfortunately, the quietly brilliant, stylish “Zola,” based on a now infamous 148-tweet thread, is one of those films that would have benefitted from a word of mouth theatrical run.

This sneaky picture about how two strangers “fell out” on a raucous, wild Florida road trip, bravely dares to go where most movies won’t. Our lead character, Zola (the “straight man” to the madness played by Taylour Paige), is coerced into said mini-vacation by Stephani (complicated villain/victim Riley Keough) who says they’re just “going dancing” but leaves out some key information about what the real money making mission at hand is.

Their violent pimp (Colman Domingo, going for broke with this performance in the best way possible) and naive ridealong (Nicholas Braun, somehow even more hilariously out of his element than in “Succession”) subtly demonstrate two sides of toxic masculinity where both of them need to own their women, just in different ways.

“Zola” is not a perfect film. Director Janicza Bravo gets needlessly showy in places glamorizing the girls dancing which distracts from the down to earth realism where the movie really shines, nor is there much of a true conclusion- it just kind of ends. Which I guess is to be expected from a story based on a Twitter thread.

Yet, I’d still label it as a modern masterpiece, even more proudly Floridian than “The Florida Project” with its neon lights, shady characters and slack jawed slang. If you can’t tell, I loved this bombastic piece of uniquely 21st century cinema.

Final verdict: A cult classic ahead of its time (Streaming on Showtime, you can get a free week that can be canceled before payment).

“To Dust” (2019): This has been on my list of movies to see for years but somehow just kept getting pushed down. It’d be number two and then a new release would bump it back. Unfair, I know. There’s just too much good stuff.

Anyhow, I’m glad I finally got around to catching this underseen, wry even-handed indie about modern Orthodoxy. It didn’t knock my socks off but I did like it a whole lot.

Director Shawn Snyder tells the tale of a grieving Orthodox Jewish male widow (Geza Rohrig, you might recognize him from the harrowing single take Holocaust film “Son of Saul”) who enlists a local professor (Matthew Broderick, doing the tormented sad sack shtick he perfected in “Cable Guy” and “Election“) to help him find out what happens to his wife after she is buried.

On paper, it doesn’t sound like a laugh riot, but this fish out of water, two-hander places these well-meaning but unqualified, ill equipped adventurers in so many unusual situations that I felt like I was watching an unreleased, low stakes Coen Bros. film.

The men repeatedly break religious rules going so far as killing a pig (yup) and breaking into a cemetery (a bravura final scene) just to give this poor guy closure. It’s all a bit silly but touching too; the divorced Broderick shouldn’t be helping but finds himself kindly going along with this silly plan because he can’t strand this stranger.

Final verdict: The line “Killing a pig won’t bring back your wife” sums up this dramatic comedy of errors perfectly for me. Biblically serious mixed with gallows humor (streaming on Vudu, never used this service before. It’s free with ads. Not half bad).

*Broderick’s career arc from a fun loving teen in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to overwhelmed, put-upon adult is fascinating to me. It’s a great reinvention and true to life- recklessness at a young age can make you overly cautious in your later years. Just thought that was interesting. Carry on.

“Blood Conscious” (2021): Each week, I receive multiple “New York Times recommends” emails. Sometimes, they’re “The 50 Best Movies On Hulu” or “Genre Wednesday.”

I read all their buzzy blurbs but rarely file them away for future viewing.

However, their synopsis for this low-budget thriller caught my eye. They hooked me by pitching a movie that takes place the day AFTER a thriller.

So, I rented.

The Times was right- this movie was certainly worth the watch. Here, a brother, sister and her salesman boyfriend all travel upstate to visit their parents at an idyllic campsite. The three bicker and banter the whole ride only to discover that their parents have been offed in some kind of brutal mass act of violence.

A mysterious force haunts the campgrounds and now the siblings and salesman boyfriend have to navigate the area surrounded by potential danger. The danger or suspense isn’t what makes this impressive flick so lively though. The prickly brother-sister squabbling/coping with their new circumstances is what gives this movie edge.

Sure, the plot mechanisms on how their parents came to perish are a bit far-fetched but the drama, lived-in relationships and Boomer villains with mysterious ulterior motives are so well established that I’ll let the kooky story logic go.

On top of all that, the ending is a true wallop.

Final verdict: An 80-minute movie with a lot to say. Even more impressively, the talented director Timothy Covell pulled it off with a shoestring budget. This is a great blueprint for anyone that’s always wanted to make something small and mighty (streaming on YouTube for a measly $3.99).

• There’s a few cool things on the horizon for me. I’m going to be intentionally vague about them. Vague is always the way to be. 

I tell you what they are? Boring. 

Vague? OK, now you’re hooked.

I’ll see you sometime soon (that’s me setting up a vague timeline but you already know it’ll be a week from now)

Comedy Stray Notes May 16, 2022

• My wife Anna E. Paone and I were married in an interfaith Jewish-Catholic ceremony back in 2019. There was a rabbi, priest and mild confusion from both parties about the other one’s customs.

This week, I participated in a reading of Arnie Reyes’ eye-opening and zeitgeist-y pilot “Mi Casa Meshuga,” where he tells a similar interfaith story about a first-generation Mexican-American immigrant man and his Jewish wife. In said reading, your boy played both a) the lead’s wise cracking but out of touch coworker AND b) his 12-year-old son studying to be bar mitzvahed.

Yeah, your boy’s got range.

The script, full of high-wire familial tensions, cultural differences and a loveable grandma who steals the show from the leads, is a crackling, lively piece of entertainment that would easily fit into ABC’s current sitcom lineup. That’s what makes these readings so great— you might be part of something huge in just a year or two.

• For the past month and change, I’ve been writing with the New Jersey-based sketch group Late Night Hump run by the formidable trio made up of Reena Ezra, Jordan Fried and Brendan O’Brien (h/t to Stan Talouis for turning my on to this excellent team).

Once I became more and more involved, I did a bit of research (research to me means typing “Late Night Hump” into a YouTube search bar) and found out the crew had made a feature-length movie. They humbly never mentioned it to me before.

So, I never told them that I checked it out.

Now, I’m ready to spill the dirt.

It’s great. Really. This 72-minute mockumentary “Beware The Horn: A Cult Classic” about an obsessive yet clueless filmmaker (Fried) who will stop at nothing to expose a cult masquerading as an improv troupe that he can’t even get into after auditioning is a blast. What makes this hidden gem so special is that it’s got that perfect ‘Simpsons’ high and lowbrow humor working in tandem. Our lead may be oblivious but like Homer will indirectly comment on his surroundings with an out of character self awareness.

If you’re looking for a sophisticated satire of improv culture and recent film grads, this is the movie for you. Most impressively, it looks like the team made this picture as a pure labor of love. 

• As a budding stand up comic, the dream is always to play the road. Sure, you want to move to New York or Los Angeles to see if your stuff is up to snuff with all the tastemakers but the real end goal is performing for audiences all over the good U.S. of A.

For years, I wanted a taste of the road and only ever got a sample via festivals. I never opened or featured or hosted anywhere outside of New York City (or my hometown Phoenix). However, I always pined to travel and visit states I’d never been to and see the sights but mostly see if I could make the locals laugh.

Since that never really happened, the next best way to make that dream a reality I’ve found is by listening to Zach Peterson’s “No Coast Comedy” podcast where he spotlights a local scene that isn’t NYC or LA. It’s like “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives” but for local comedy scenes.

In the three episodes I listened to, Peterson chatted with Houstonians (Andrew Youngblood and Zahid Dewji), Albuquerqueans (Sarah Kennedy) and Alaskans (Kass Smiley who runs the B4UDie Festival that I always kick myself for not going to years ago because of logistics with my day job). Each comic profiled has a true entrepreneurial spirit— they all started their own comedy festivals or clubs.

Therefore, not only do each of these comics act as historians and share scene secrets, they also have valuable producing tips like “Light your showroom or bar red because green makes you look sick, blue is depressing. Everyone looks good in red.”

Noted.

When all is said and done, Peterson asks the question that’s on all our minds: “What’s the best place to eat in your city?” After each guest’s mouthwatering answers, the show has somewhat morphed into actual “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives” and I’m totally cool with that.

Comics want to travel and don’t know where to start? Zach did the homework for you. Tune in.

• I remember meeting Luke Mones at a bad feedback mic in 2013 in midtown Manhattan. Even back then, in the worst of circumstances for comedy (a feedback mic), it was obvious that Luke had something special. He seemed to tap into the mundane with a gleeful abandon, a quality that’s still present in his act to this day. I befriended the guy and became a fan as well.

Now, almost a decade later, Luke just performed at the Netflix Is A Joke Festival in Los Angeles and tore the roof off the place. In just four minutes, he makes fun of Southern grandparent nicknames and the conundrum that planes are just never ready for their passengers with a bemused deadpan blended with a genuine enthusiasm.

Can’t wait for the next set whether it be late night or a special- all I know is that it’s coming soon.

• Making stand up cinematic is hard. There’s nothing inherently dramatic or kinetic about a person telling jokes into a microphone. However, Tyler Matthews’ short film “The Open Micer” seems to have cracked the code. His five-minute atmospheric, noir short pays homage to the shady underbelly of paid open mics (yes, this is a real thing for the uninitiated) complete with femme fatales, heavies and a smartly realized callback at the end of the film that left me gobsmacked.

A five-minute film about open mics closing with a strong punchline? I’m sold.

• Pound for pound, it’s hard to compete with Joe List when it comes to LPMs (Laughs Per Minute). The naturally funny neurotic shoots hard, polished jokes out so fast and furious that all you can do as an audience member is sit back and laugh while slack jawed in awe.

In his second-most recent special “I Hate Myself” (I’m a bit behind), he squeezes the very last bit of juice out of well-worn airline material (just like Luke; maybe we all were quick to write off flying as a premise in a post-Seinfeld world) and does the unthinkable: List takes somewhat unrelatable experiences like swimming in the Dead Sea and makes the audience feel as if they’re there with him by not bogging us down with details.

This is a typical comic trait and one I often fall prey to- anytime, you tell a story about, say boogie boarding (boogie boarding is always my example), you can very easily lose audience members that have never had this experience.

List has the opposite effect. Then, when he takes on something even more universal like “dining in” at McDonalds, every therapist’s advice or finding out what your wife finds sexy, it hits twice as hard.

Yes, List dubbed the special “I Hate Myself” but this audience member loved it (HIGH CHEESE ALERT).

“Clifford” (1994): We ain’t talking about the darn big, red dog. No, this is a review of the famously critically maligned/cult classic Martin Short film where he plays the titular character who happens to be an insufferable P.O.S. that is also ten. 

Yes, 40-year-old Martin Short starred in a movie where he played a pre-teen “PEN15” style. The ‘90s were a wild time. 

Here, Short dreams of going to Dino World, a fictional amusement park centered around dinosaurs released a year after “Jurassic Park” (but filmed in 1990 and shelved for four years). His parents, a harried Richard Kind and Jennifer Savidge, drop him off with his uncle, the king of cinematic discomfort, Charles Grodin who is using Clifford to become closer to his fiancée (Mary Steenburgen) who thinks he isn’t fit for fatherhood based on a real estate purchase he just made with a steep cliff not fit for children (a plot thread ironically left hanging). 

Did I mention Short is essentially the devil incarnate? For 90 minutes, he insufferably tortures Grodin’s put upon doting uncle character who eventually snaps. 

There’s no one to root for here and if that sounds like a downer, it kind of is (there’s also an awful Dabney Coleman grabby boss subplot too). The studio had to interfere and wedge in a preachy preamble and epilogue with a prosthetics-ridden, elderly looking Short as a Priest doing penance for his youthful misdeeds and steering troubled kids (like a young Ben Savage pre “Boy Meets World”) away from similar hijinks. This tacked on message completely drops this chaotic film’s nasty streak undercutting its entire mojo.

When it was over, I didn’t know what to think. Was Short funny as the unhinged tween? Absolutely. Did Grodin ground a seemingly far out story? 100%.

Did this movie’s critical maligning pass muster but the cult status didn’t make sense? Totally.

So, I consulted a podcast to try and make better sense of my conflicted feelings.

Keep reading for…

“Blank Check with Griffin and David” featuring Tom Scharpling: I’m ashamed to say these guys figured it out for me.

I’d been meaning to listen to this movie discussion podcast for a long time and while scrolling through their back catalog, I discovered they talked about “Clifford” not once, but twice. Surely, they would help me understand why this beloved film has merit.

I listened to the sequel episode which came about because podcast extraordinaire Tom Scharpling was such a super fan that he repeatedly called into Griffin Newman’s other podcast “George Lucas Live” many times to donate with only one request- they give his favorite film “Clifford” a proper re-evaluation.

This is exactly what I needed. Please inform my opinion, people who have been stewing on this film for two decades.

Although tongue in cheek, the hosts and guests present a level-headed and sympathetic assessment of this cinematic misfire labeling it as a battle of wits “overbearing guest secret horror film” in the same league as “What About Bob” or “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” On the other hand, it also checked the boxes of bizarro kid living a whimsical reality like “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Problem Child.”

On paper, the movie simply followed the conventions of these subgenres; something I had not considered. Were they as good as its predecessors? Heavens, no. They do defend the movie valiantly though.

The hosts and Scharpling note that what separates “Clifford” is that by casting a cynical, put upon straight man (Grodin) and an evil kid (Short), we’re left with no one to root for…which is kind of hilarious if you think about it. What are we, cheerleaders? Why do we need to root for someone? They riff on how kids kicking adults in the shins is hilarious and make sense of Clifford’s indomitable spirit (He often says “I sleep less than you’d expect” often). While it’s grating to watch, when you hear these co-hosts unravel the nutso kid logic, you have to give credit where it’s due- it makes sense to Clifford even if it doesn’t to us.

Even still, I’m selling this sophisticated podcast short. The hosts bring a wealth of knowledge and a smidge of snobbery to the proceedings which is exactly how I like my movie commentary served best. To put it succinctly, I felt like I was listening in on funnier, smarter people discussing something I couldn’t quite articulate, which now that I write that, is what most of entertainment is (at least what I like to consume).

Plus, they imagine a “Clifford 2” that takes place in between the original and future epilogue “Clifford” that shows how he got to be the pious soul he eventually became. Now that’s a movie I’d see.

Final verdict: See this cult classic film (Streaming on YouTube for free) and then chase it with the podcast. They pair well together.

• The hit to miss ratio on SNL this season has been exceptional. Looking back on past episodes, I don’t think there was a clunker in the bunch unless you include the Paul Rudd Christmas episode where they forced Tina Fey and Tom Hanks to host the world’s lamest clip show.

I digress.

This week, we got our first true stinker of the season where the groundouts and strikeouts outweighed the base hits (I score sketches weirdly. Sue me).

My hunch is that this had something to do with a few cast members being out with COVID which leads me to speculate that maybe some of the writing staff was as well.

With all that said, here’s my review of this week’s episode hosted by “Only Murders In The Building” third banana Selena Gomez.

Home Runs

“Old Enough” pre-tape: This parody of the “toddlers running errands” show “Old Enough” was smart, pointed and another jab at the listless 30-something man I see myself becoming (this season’s earlier “Man Park” as a nice companion piece). Here, a 34-year-old boyfriend is sent to run his girlfriend’s errands and completely drops the ball picking up her makeup and two shallots. They’ve tapped into something very real here (at least for me) and put up a mirror to my mere existence. There were some logic gaps here  like “why doesn’t this guy just FaceTime his girlfriend and ask what she wants” but that’s not the point. This works big time and will hold up years later after the Netflix reality show “Old Enough” is long gone.

Triples

Weekend Update: First of all, major props once again to the team who comes up with the recurring “Mitch McConnell pictured here (insert awful action)” bit. It does not get old. All other jokes did their thing. Your classic intentionally shocking, goofy gags (“Barbie with hearing aids is coming soon which goes to show that it doesn’t matter if you’re deaf as long as that body bangin’”) and socially relevant jokes (the spelling out of how our reality has become Mad Max-like was particularly inspired) along with sensational correspondent pieces from Baby Yoda (I never tire of this character; sue me again) and Sarah Sherman pilfering through Jost’s dressing room.

Doubles

“Baby Monitor:” A pure five-to-one balls to the wall weird sketch. Here, a house party turns into a group of teens diligently overseeing two demon babies (Sherman and Yang) squirming, running, jumping and catapulting in their crib. The heightens are fun, the staging of the scene impressive. Stick around for the ending of this one- this is the rare sketch punctuated with a thrilling final punchline.

Singles

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Cold Open: I’ll admit I haven’t caught any of this trial. After reading the YouTube comments for this sketch, I found that the general consensus was that SNL completely missed what was funny about Depp V. Heard. Anyhow, the running bit where the housekeeping staff tries to make sense of why someone would take a dookie where they sleep was amusing enough and felt more like a sketch (similar to Bill Hader’s “Dateline” where he would goad criminals to elaborate on grisly details) than a Cold Open, so points for that.

“Three Daughters:” A prince seeks a bride from a king who has three daughters to choose from and expects one of them to be “weird” or “have something really wrong with them.” A bit of meta commentary on the rule of threes in sketch. Smartly, they subvert expectations and make the third character overly normal until the end, of course. It’s a brilliant move but never quite took off (although the prince’s review of stodgy dance moves as “regular hot dancing” did make me LOL) to take it to the next level.

“Intuition” pre-tape: I’d have given this energetic “Devil on the shoulder dispensing wild advice” sketch a much higher grade if it didn’t give off such “Big Mouth” vibes. Sure, it’s not entirely fair to grade a sketch based on what it’s similar to but I just felt like I’d seen this “person does irrational things because a hormone monster told them to” charade before. Kudos to Punkie Johnson though- her devil was the best work she’s done of the show thus far by my estimation.

Ground Outs

“Bratz Dolls:” Ah yes, another tried and true formula where “something in a child’s bedroom comes to life.” Here, the two female and one male Bratz comment on a girl’s sad life and try to hook up with her dad. It’s a well the show has dipped into before with better results. 

“A Peek At Pico:” Oof. This talk show hosted by Villasenor and Gomez trades in stereotypes that feel out of place in 2022. Yeah, there are a few fun ideas bandied about (the hosts interrupt their guests a la “What’s Up With That”) but this cringey, almost exploitative sketch felt dated on arrival. I’m rooting for Villasenor but don’t love when she taps into this type of minstrel-y act.

“Irish Play:” Anna and I diagnosed what was wrong with this sketch right out of the gate. They took a great premise about the state of modern theater where understudies regularly replace cast members who are out due to COVID and can’t remember lines. Ripe for comedy. However, by making fun of a nonexistent Irish play rather than one actually running on Broadway, this sketch lost a chance to have real bite and graduate from “silly” to “satire.”

Strikeouts

Selena Gomez monologue: This did not inspire confidence. Gomez’s anti-charisma works on “Only Murders” when she’s playing against Martin and Short but by herself, she’s a real drag. All of the eligible bachelors (who turn out to be married) and bachelorettes hitting on her? Yawn. Singing “Barney” unironically? That’s when we moved into the rare strikeout territory. 

“Inventor Documentary” pre-tape: When I was in film school, we screened all of our thesis films at the end of senior year and I was so excited. My movie on the big screen! I imagined every joke would get huge laughs. Nope. I’d made something “clever” but not “funny.” There were a lot of knowing smiles but not many actual lols. That’s how I’d categorize this Steve Martin curio. Inventor of the whoopee cushion looking for the right sound? Tough sell. This seems like a summer camp skit (yes, I said skit). While Aidy Bryant admirably attempts to breathe life into this stale concept by going big with her unlucky character that inspired all of the gag gifts of the 20th century, I just couldn’t bring myself to laugh. The fact that this was all they did with Steve Martin knocked it down a peg for me too taking it into full-on strikeout.

“Guidance Counselor:” Surprisingly short, this unusual trifle where guidance counselors advise graduating seniors to pursue modeling even if they want to be accountants never went anywhere. A commentary on influencers and Gen Z’ers? I don’t know because I didn’t get anything out of this other than…I might be getting tired of Bowen Yang’s shtick. 

Here’s hoping they saved all the goods for next week’s finale with the very random Natasha Lyonne and Japanese Breakfast as host and musical guest. My dream is that they give loving sendoffs to middling cast members like Moffatt, Day and Mooney (although I’ll miss him) to make way for a new generation next season.

• One notable trailer dropped this week (by my estimation). Cooper Raiff’s “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” which netted bank at Sundance, appears to be a modest indie dramedy centered around a bar mitzvah DJ who finds himself as the odd man out in a love triangle.

Looks decent enough. Solid concept with an obvious unrequited love story. Kinda looks more like an eight-episode Apple TV series than a movie but I’d still see it just to catch Brad Garrett and Leslie Mann in supporting roles.

All that being said, I have a theory.

Film schools are bankrolling Cooper Raiff’s movies just so more students keep enrolling. This guy gives the next generation hope- you still can get an indie dramedy made, even if it looks just so-so.

• Now, go outside. You can scroll there. It’s a beautiful day lol

Comedy Stray Notes May 9, 2022

• I’ll admit it. Sometimes I miss the quaint Zoom days of 2020. There was something comforting about clicking into a long calendar invite link and meeting up with friends virtually.

So, I went old school this week and gathered a few of my favorite folks (Anna E. Paone, Jay Welch, Jocelyn Chia, Nikki MacCallum, Christie Bahna, Audrey Shapiro and Sam Zelitch) for a reading of my pilot “Wabbits” (details are under wraps…just because I like to maintain a sense of mystery. Now you kinda want to keep reading, right?).

Admittedly, the draft I had the cast read was a bit undercooked. I could have done more research, tightened up the storyline and balanced the tone better. However, my dream cast came through for me. Not only did they deliver very funny and grounded performances but after the reading every single person stayed on and offered valuable notes to improve the show.

It was a beautiful thing. Each actor generously gave their time to help me see what the best version of this show could be. I didn’t just have actors help me in a pinch. I also inadvertently hired a writer’s room. Remember these above names. You have a reading or need a cast? Each of these people will go way above and beyond to help you make the best version of whatever your project is.

• About four months ago, I graduated from Brent Forrester’s five-week “Creating Comedy--From Character to Scene and Story” course. In the class, I learned quite a bit about CCC’s (Core Comic Characteristics) but the most valuable takeaway has been the community that Brent built.

Since the class concluded, I’ve been a part of the 926-member (and growing) Facebook group where writers share projects they’re working on, swap scripts, start pilot analysis clubs, offer industry scripts and stage readings.

In the past week, I had the privilege of taking part in Henry Greenberg’s very funny mockumentary “The Dentist” and watching Kelly McCarron’s laugh out loud “Siblings” featuring my wife Anna Paone. Then, there’s another one coming up this week. Pilot season is in full swing.

Want to start acting in Zooms and meet fellow writers/directors/actors/comics from all over the world? Let me know. I’ll see what I can do to get you involved.

• In the real world, I spent my Tuesday evening on the set of Barak Ziv’s directorial debut “The Guest Spot” at Stand Up NY. 

You’d never guess it was Barak’s first time helming a production. He and director of photography Matt Menard collaborated seamlessly to create a chill environment for the cast made up of Max Marcus, Daniel J. Perafan, Divya Gunasekaran, Crenshaw White and Dave Jenkins who all brought a collaborative spirit to the proceedings punching up jokes on the spot and coming up with creative solutions to logistical problems that popped up.

Best lesson on the set though? If you’re filming a sketch, get as many funny takes as you can. You’ve already spent the money on the location, equipment and craft services. Now, go crazy with the lines. They’re the only thing that’s free and will save you in the editing room. Never ask yourself “Should we film the performer saying this line?” Just get it. You’ll thank yourself later.

• As you may recall, I’m a big fan of the self-produced stand up special. They’re typically more personal, unique and memorable than content mass-produced for networks.

Nic Crespo’s beautifully photographed, 19-minute “SUPERIOR: A Lower East Side Special” is all of the above and more. Set inside Crespo’s neighborhood bodega that’s being bought out, he centers his material around the convenience shop that’s more than just a place where you can buy ramen, cigarettes and seltzer- it’s a hub for the community. 

Crespo takes the stage behind the store counter and delivers hard hitting jokes while also incorporating characters from the neighborhood into the show. It’s a masterful stroke to include people the audience doesn’t know and make them feel as if they’re old friends. 

At one point, a few women walk out of the showroom. Rather than cut this from the special like other comics might, Crespo opts to walk on the wild side and not only keep this moment in but showcase his improvised, hostile reaction. It’s mean-spirited, vitriolic and fully in the moment. That’s what separates this special from others: “SUPERIOR” is bursting with realism. 

Comics, we need more self-produced specials with this. Keep comedy personal.

• It took me a little over a year but I finally finished Colin Jost’s memoir “A Punchable Face.” 

Before I get into my review, I have a thought: if you’re under 40, please don’t write a memoir. You don’t have enough perspective yet. Save the life story for later. Trust me on this.

Now, my review.

My major gripe with Jost’s lively, occasionally hilarious collection of true stories is that it often rings hollow. There are great anecdotes about how he didn’t talk until he was four, high school speech and debate in Staten Island, the Harvard Lampoon (don’t know about the building the Lampoon is written in? You’re in for a doozy), what slips past censors at SNL, bombing at the Emmys, bombing at Weekend Update and bombing at stand up (lots of bombing) but a secret ingredient is missing.

Heart.

Jost is a pure joke writer and fills his pages with laugh lines, admissions of guilt (he honestly could be arrested for something he did in France he writes about in a later chapter) and non-stop self deprecation but there’s no real perspective, emotion or stakes. This may be the greatest downfall of comic writing- the author feels like they have to make the reader laugh ten times per page and in the process forgets what makes for compelling reading.

However, in one chapter, Jost drops the act to pay homage to his mother who helped the NYFD on 09/11. It’s by far the least funny chapter (as one might expect) but the ten pages are his most gripping (and this is coming from someone who bought the book mostly to read behind the scenes SNL stories). By sticking to what’s true and meaningful, you find what the readers really want which is honest storytelling. 

• “The Lost City” (2022): Now, I’ll back up my “honesty in storytelling” thesis from above.

While on the surface “The Lost City” is a whiz bang action comedy crowd pleaser that follows all the beats of the “Hero’s journey” to a T, it has a beating heart at its core that propels the story forward.

That story is the tale of romance novelist Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock) and her book’s cover model Alan (a never funnier Channing Tatum) that she can’t stand.

Sage is grieving the passing of her archaeologist husband and turns in an uninspired final draft of her most recent novel. Doesn’t matter that the book’s no good, all the publishers have to do is slap a sexy cover on the story and it’ll sell like hotcakes.

On her press tour hosted by Bowen Yang, fans clamor for Alan while she lifelessly goes through the motions. 

It’s a disaster. Alan’s Fabio wig is ripped off, she insults the fans, no one’s happy.

Then, she gets kidnapped by billionaire Daniel Radcliffe. He supplies her with a lifetime supply of charcuterie and tells her he needs her to find the symbols that will take him to “The Lost City” on the island he’s taken over.

Her stories have become her life!

Alan (along with a star in an extended cameo so unexpected and well-executed I refuse to spoil it) heads overseas to rescue poor Sage.

Leeches stick to Tatum, romance blossoms and a hilarious set piece where Bullock is chained to a chair all ensue.

It’s a great time.

“The Lost City” does everything you expect it to but in a way that was so breathlessly fun and emotionally true that I didn’t care. All you need to make any story no matter how far-fetched is give audiences the three-dimensional characters and heart they crave. Plus, cameos from Patti Harrison, Oscar Nunez and a score of other comedy ringers doesn’t hurt.

Final verdict: Although critics dunked on this movie, I think it’s the true meta movie of the year. Sorry “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” this is how it’s done. 

• After an extended hiatus, SNL is back. This go-round, they brought in Benedict Cumberbatch, the latest face to be slapped on a Marvel poster along with Arcade Fire whose new album “WE” is indisputably hot fire.

Here are my slapdash, rinky-dink baseball-scored ratings of the 90-minute program:

Home runs:

“Blue Bunny” focus group: You may recall that Sam Elliott criticized Cumberbatch’s film “Power Of The Dog” on WTF a few months back. He was in no way part of the film but the mustachioed septuagenarian cowboy didn’t like what they had done to the modern western. 

So, Cumberbatch slyly returned the favor by playing a sleepy Elliott type who can’t stop earnestly waxing poetic about how Blue Bunny’s flavors bring him back to pivotal moments of his life. Heidi Gardner’s “pea in a pod” character follows suit and does the same. The two go dark and their stories ooze with tension much to the chagrin of horrified onlookers who were just eating some ice cream. Either way, I’d watch a movie, nay! a franchise of movies about these characters. Very funny stuff.

“The Understudy” pre-tape: Chloe Fineman does her best work on the show to date dressing up as her fellow female cast members and impersonating them demonstrating what she can do if any of them can’t make an episode. It’s a tricky line to walk but she smartly makes it more reverential than snarky and even impersonates impersonator Melissa Villasenor. A neat trick. Would like to see her do the 14 or so male cast members next.

Triples:

“Chain gang:” Musically, this sketch was on point. A quartet of prisoners sing about their troubled lives in the chain gang. Then, BOOM! My screen froze. Anna and I did that thing where we predicted the “game” of the sketch. I guessed one of them did something really awful to become a part of the chain gang and they’d sing about it at length. The actual reveal? Much funnier and friendlier. Once again, no point in spoiling as all the fun here is in the surprise. 

Doubles:

“Roe V. Wade” cold open: Major points to the show for not giving us the stodgy C-Span version of this cold open that it easily could have been. Instead by citing Justice Samuel Alito’s references to a document from the 13th century and then actually going nearly 1000 years back to when this historical precedent was set was a nice touch. No matter where you stand on this hot-button issue, you gotta admit that this observational take on what life was like nearly a millennium ago is a smarter way to handle this sensitive topic. Plus, McKinnon’s “elderly” woman in her 30s was a swell gag.

“Mom sign:” The Mother’s Day episode always means we’re getting mom sketches. Love when the writers have to play within a sandbox to come up with new ways to cover old material. Here, the team executes the tried and true “give a person those inspirational signs” as a gift with aplomb sticking the landing and then some. At first, the signs seem cheesy which is fun on its own. Then, they get aggressively personal and aggressively weird. Special kudos to Andrew Dismukes for pointing out that they got the Aidy Bryant mom character so many signs because “they were only $1.99.”

“Just Like You” pre-tape: This touching, if a bit preachy pre-tape starts in a familiar corner where Cecily Strong’s mom character lectures her daughter (Fineman) for coming home drunk only to flash back to her debaucherous college years with each return to the past more sordid and messed up than the last. The contrast between the buttoned-up matriarch and grunged up matriarch that Strong plays is impressive work on her part. I’d put it in her Best Of for sure. Only reason this slides into the “Double” category rather than a “Triple” or “Home Run” is the inherent treacliness/preachiness.

Weekend Update: Once again, Weekend Update gets the short shrift with a “blink and you’ll miss it” edition of the fake news. Jost and Che come out of the gate swinging a big stick taking on the historic news of the week. They set the tone with “Tomorrow is Mother’s Day whether you want it to be one or not.” Then, they don’t shy away from the topic when McKinnon is wheeled out as Amy Coney-Barrett downplaying how difficult pregnancy is. Overall, they handled one of America’s touchiest subjects with surprising delicacy and sensitivity without going too far to please any one side of the aisle. Some may call that spineless, I call it impressive (credit where it’s due- Jost writes a mean joke).

“New toilet” pre-tape: Gotta give points to this tribute to Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall” music video where everyone sits on boring toilets until the radical NEW TOILET comes along. This isn’t really funny per se but the practical invention of the new toilet (tell me that doesn’t look like a better experience, I dare you) coupled with the stoic, pitch perfect parody of ‘80s British schools (I didn’t go to an oppressive British school then or ever but it feels right) made me appreciate the bit here quite a bit. 

Singles:

Cumberbatch monologue:  Old BC scored here sincerely paying his respects to mom and wife. This is middle of the road, meat and potatoes forgettable but warm hearted comedy. Gotta give credit where it’s due once again as well too- the gag where Cumberbatch’s mom didn’t come because she’d rather stay on the beach in Greece she’s vacationing was perfect.

“Fainting couch:” One-joke sketches are often considered SNL’s greatest crutch (see “The Californians”) or strength (see the layered “Cowbell”). This silly trifle where Cecily String’s character repeatedly faints falls into the former camp more so than the latter but thanks to her commitment to fainting and knocking over props, the dumb bit doesn’t fall completely flat. Even if you see the joke coming from a mile away, a solid performance can make a world of difference.

“Chuck E. Cheese:” Animatronic characters at ol’ Chuck E. Cheese not working? Why not bring in an ‘80s synth pop band to entertain the children instead? That’s the premise here. It’s solid until you get the joke and then it’s just Cumberbatch and Bowen singing semi-catchy tunes. Would have liked more interaction with the kids or the animatronic characters coming to life to switch things up. 

All that being said, the biggest laugh of the episode for me came from this sketch which was when Moffatt’s Chuck E. Cheese manager FELT the music and truly rocked out to these soft synth tunes. For that alone, this sketch graduated from a ground out to a solid single.

Overall: Decent episode with a high batting average. No true whiffs and a few standout moments. The show isn’t flying as high as it was at the beginning of the season but this show was nothing to sneeze at. A lot to like here.

Side note: I’ve been a hardcore Arcade Fire fan for about 20 years having owned their music on CDs, iTunes playlists and MP3s over the past two decades.

While I have a soft spot for their 2013 “Reflektor,” this new album “WE” really is as great as advertised. Bombastic, and intimate, sweeping and weepy, it will make you want to cheer and tear up all at once.

Therefore, I just wanted to say how exciting it was to see the group get the rare honor of playing three songs on air which is usually reserved for heavyweights like U2, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney.

Can’t wait for the tour.

Look out, kids.

• Let’s close the week out with a quick trailer roundup and then you can go about your day. Just need your attention for like anotjer 45 seconds I swear.

- It seems like “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” was announced yesterday, was a major part of the news cycle and now just a month or so later, we’ve already got ourselves a teaser.

There’s not a ton to go off on this minute-long promo story-wise but Radcliffe looks like he’s having fun, the look is spot-on era appropriate and faux serious treatment of the silliest parody songs of all time should be a gas. “Weird” should be a home run for the Roku Channel (or however it’s being distributed.”

- Machine Gun Kelly is starring in a comedy? And it looks halfway decent? I’m just as surprised as you are. 

“Good Mourning” is your classic thin story (actor gets broken up and finds himself) where the lead encounters dozens of funny people (GaTa from “Dave,” Whitney Cummings, Pete Davidson, Danny Trejo and the voice of Snoop) who get all the laugh lines before it descends into quick hit chaos where it’s hard to decipher what exactly is going on other than drugs and cops are involved.

Don’t know if this will be any good but I’m guessing either “surprise cult classic” or “cultural punchline.”

We’ll see soon enough. Comes out May 20.

• Happy belated Mother’s Day to my mom, grandma, wife and sister in law. And all the other moms. You guys really deserve at least two days

Comedy Stray Notes May 2, 2022

• It’s annoying when you hear “it’s the end of an era.” The phrase is used too liberally. Eras end every day. There’s just too many eras to keep track.

Anyhow, an era ended on Friday. A real one.

The Arizona-based syndicated television talk show “Right This Minute” filmed their final episode after eleven seasons.

I have a particular soft spot for this “The View” + “Tosh.0” + “the internet comments section come to life” program because they hired me for my first post-college job as an editor (sorry, I don’t count my two weeks at SmashBurger in Tempe as my real first post-college job).

For two years, I had more fun editing the five bubbly hosts- Beth Troutman, Gayle Bass, Nick Calderone, Steven Fabian and Christian Vera- than anyone should have in the working world. The producers Dennis O’Neill and Lisa Hudson fostered such a fun environment with dunk tanks, Nerf guns, ping pong tournaments that made going into work feel less like a job than college (and I went to notorious party school Arizona State, baby).

Years later, when I lost my job on January 2, 2020 (one day into the decade I claimed would “be mine” lol), Dennis serendipitously reached out to me and asked if he could put one of my sketches on air. “Right This Minute” wasn’t a company. It was a family. They always had all of our backs.

My fellow editor family, made up of Adam Bellucci, Doug Morehouse, Rene Michel, Todd Hunt, Kevin Andress, Brad Fack, Celeste Arkeat, Noel Pizarro, Morgan Stehr, Conrad Miszuk, Dan Nettles, Greg Rabolvsky, Brady Gillman, Alex Quituga, Sean Hennessy, Candice Young and a bunch more helped me fake it until I actually started to understand how to cut footage at a breakneck pace. On day one, I was sweating with imposter syndrome; a month in, I was having a blast. The working world really wasn’t so bad after all.

There’s so many more family members. Joanne Ingram. Jessica Hord. Phil Alvidrez. Lisa Alering. Chris Holden. Kirsten Olmos. Mayra Mendoza. Jake Olmos. Theresa Cano. Chris Ayers. Carie Gladding. Heather Herr. Alicia Barron. Madi Lipari. Daz Smith. Betsy Holloway. Brittany Williams. Manny Garcia. Maryal Miller. David Miller. Ian McClaren. Seriously, so many great coworkers, it’s hard to count.

Some stayed all the way until the end of the show’s storied run. Others left earlier.

When I jetted to the East Coast, Doug Morehouse and I made an ode to the show called “Right This Minute: A Fan’s Story.” It’s full of goofy inside jokes that might not make sense if you haven’t seen the show but what you will catch is the palpable love we felt for this twice-daily talk show. They really made something special.

What’s the point of all this?

Well, If you’re reading and looking for gifted, talented, funny editors, producers, freelancers, anything, sound off in the comments. You might be getting yourself a real talent who is now available and ready to give their all. I can’t recommend all of these folks enough.

*If I forgot an RTMer, let me know! That was not my intention; I definitely made oversights and I’m happy to fix.

• In 2008, I heard Girl Talk, the mashup virtuoso, for the first time and my feeble mind exploded on impact. “Feed The Animals” is easily my most listened-to album by far and it’s not even close. Since then, I’ve tried my best to make like a DeadHead or Phish Phanatic and see Girl Talk as many times as I possibly can. 

As of today, I’ve seen Greg Gillis (Girl Talk’s real name; not sure if he’s related to Shane Gillis or not- problematic!) live four times since ‘08. Each show has been a magical dance party that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Heck, I still wear the ratty, tattered t-shirt I bought at a merch table in Tucson back in 2008 almost once a week.

His latest tour was supposed to take place in 2020 but was put on hold multiple times. That was almost the worst part of the early days of the pandemic for me. I’d been anxiously counting the days until Gillis’ show and each postponement led me to believe it would never happen.

Finally, last Thursday it did. And I got to bring my pregnant wife Anna Paone along for the ride. So, in a way, my unborn child got to go to their first concert (I’m not going to let a gender reveal slip that easily).

Anna and I met up with fellow mashup enthusiast Fluke Human at Brooklyn Steel an hour before the show began. No one was there. I thought GT would be performing for nine people. Were mashups done?

Slowly but surely, fellow elder millennials filed in. Phew. My fellow tubby, bearded brethren were still fans. They never forgot. For the next two hours, we’d cling to our youth. You know- when being a millennial meant something before we became the latest generation of office drones.

This time was different too. I noticed that Girl Talk’s hype men (one of the best jobs anyone could ever have) were recruiting onstage dancers. We volunteered and got to see the whole show from Girl Talk’s perspective. It was too loud, stanky and packed onstage but those are the most minor of complaints. There is nothing more fun than sing screaming “This is the story of a girl” and “Since You’ve Been Gone” over phat beats with hundreds of other music nerds.

‘Til we meet again, Girl Talk. 

• Over the pond sketch wunderkind Tom Scudamore done did it again. This time around, his goofy, five-minute piece “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” stars yours truly and Michael Coyne as dueling poets vying for Anna Paone’s affection. The dialogue is loopy and the end is an expectation-defying spectacle that I’m proud I was a part of.

Want to know what’s coolest about this short though?

Tom wrote it in the U.K., Anna and I acted from our old apartment in Long Island City (we moved back in October) and Michael Coyne’s performance was filmed in Chicago. Tom is at the forefront of comedy’s future where all the talent doesn’t need to be in the same room together. Heck, they don’t even need to be in the same country.

• Long-time “Am I The Asshole” reader, first-time “Am I The Asshole” podcast listener here. Man, am I glad that I rectified that oversight on my part. 

Hosted by Danny Vega and Sara Levine, this hip, ethicist pod traffics in detailed discussion on petty misunderstandings where the co-hosts sort through the mess and try to make sense of situations like “I was snooping through my brother’s computer and found…,” “This wedding had very strict plus one rules like…” or “There wasn’t enough food at this I attended wedding so I…” labeling all of the story’s players as “assholes” or “not assholes.” 

Complete with an easy rapport, actual legal understanding of sticky scenarios and a wicked sense of frenetic humor, I can totally see why this series is over 300 episodes deep and still fresh: the hosts really give a shit and it shows. Effort always wins out. 

• You think Comedy Stray Notes goes into the nitty gritty of comedy? Try James McAliney’s ultra-thorough YouTube channel breaking down various aspects of a performer’s life and you’ll think my screeds barely scratch the surface.

Although I could cite many of his vids that I liberally binged this week, I’ll stick to the one where he details the process of the germ of a premise to its evolution into a full-blown show-ready chunk in painstaking detail. 

On the journey, McAliney doesn’t pull any punches. He shows us the time he spends hosting outdoor mics (remember those?), dealing with unsolicited criticism and moments of intense self-doubt. It’s a beautiful comedy diary and totally worth a view.

His “Booking a celebrity headliner” vid is a gas as well.

Thanks for the rec, Michael Sullivan. This is a channel I’ll be coming back to for a long time. 

• Does this seem long already? We’re just getting started. Here’s the TV, movies, pods, stand up clips and sketches I can’t wait to tell you about from this past week.

“Hacks” (2021): You know how every show and movie gets stand up wrong? Not anymore. Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance may be the single greatest fictional comic ever created. 

Vance, an acid tongued Joan Rivers surrogate who routinely performs in Las Vegas, seems to have everything figured out. Her act, her parenting style, her life. However, this excellent debut season of television keeps throwing roadblocks at the consummate professional who really has already seen everything.

The show runner team of Paul Downs and Lucia Aniello (they also produced “Broad City”) stick Smart’s Emmy Award winning character with Hannah Einbinder’s self-righteous, entitled, underachieving Gen Z writer (Einbinder, Laraine Newman’s daughter is a hell of a find) to cook up a new act and, along the way, comment on Boomer vs. Gen Z/young millennial culture.

They more than stick the landing. Although each episode was a home run, one in particular stands out to me. In episode eight (SPOILERS ABOUND), Vance heads to the road to try her new, vulnerable, self confessional act on a small town audience. Sticking to that very premise would be too obvious though for this gifted writing staff though. Instead, Vance unleashes a vicious, rollicking tirade at the misogynistic host, that is somehow fun and even life affirming for him?

It left me breathless. THIS is the power of stand up comedy. The medium can be used for dramatic and comedic effect all at once. 

Also, major kudos to the hilarious supporting cast- Christopher McDonald AKA Shooter McGavin, Meg Stalter, Kaitlin Olson AKA Sweet Dee, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Jane Adams- and a heck of a lot more. The universe is fleshed out, fully lived-in and has me anxiously awaiting the release of season two.

Final verdict: Must see TV for any self-respecting comedy fan. Made me jealous of its storytelling ability many times over.

“Summer Of Soul” (2021): This movie may unfortunately forever go down as the trivia question “What movie won Best Documentary right after the Will Smith slap?” 

It’s a lot more than that.

Questlove’s ebullient doc is a heartfelt love letter to the Harlem Music and Arts Festival that’s been written about with universal praise so many times that saying it’s an entertaining film is more than redundant at this point.

Yes, the performances from Mahalia Jackson, Sly and the Family Stone and Stevie Wonder are mesmerizing. Yes, the cultural importance and impact of this event left an imprint on me. Yes, the showbiz anecdotes (one about the Fifth Dimension was particularly illuminating) were as charming as they were humorous.

However, the most valuable lesson I learned from this movie is that educational, historical material doesn’t have to be stodgy. It can be vibrant, lived-in, meaningful and teach viewers more about a time period by taking us there and giving a sneak peek into what looked like one of the most fun music festivals of all time.

Final verdict: A great doc to play on a loop and it’ll never lose its value just like a favorite song of yours (Streaming on Hulu).

“The Wedding Singer” (1997): I’m pretty sure I’ve seen 90% of this movie. “Love Stinks,” the famous butt grabbing dance, the Billy Idol cameo. You know the bits.

However, this was the week, I finally filled in the gaps I missed when I didn’t sit through the whole thing on VH1 back in the early aughts.

Written by Sandler’s go-to SNL writing partner Tim Herlihy (AKA Martin from “Please Don’t Destroy’s” dad), this may be one of the Sandman’s best films (yeah, I said films). Although not without its dated point of view toward all women who aren’t Drew Barrymore, this story of a wannabe rockstar turned, yup, wedding singer, is full of great jokes (the best being when the nephew runs up to a depressed Sandler and asks, “Is it true you’re going to end up in a mental institution?”), goofy cameos (a slimy Lovitz, sad sack Buscemi and always singing “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” Alexis Arquette) and heart (the climactic scene on the plane is one of the all-time great tearjerker rom com moments).

I will take points off for a few of Sandler’s trademark frat boy moves here though. Sandler often preaches inclusivity by casting atypical actors but then makes them the target of the joke. One could even go so far as to say that this toxic sense of humor framed my generation’s immature and insensitive sense of humor that took years of growing up to rectify.

Plus, Sandler’s character doesn’t really do anything to deserve any of the women he pines after in this film. Sure, the “baxter” (boyfriend that’s all wrong for the romantic lead that stands as a roadblock in movies like these) is far worse but this movie just goes to show that the bar is set pretty low for men. And this is coming from a guy who recognizes he’s not that much better.

Final verdict: A goofy rom com period piece that ended up teaching me more about being a better person by accident (Streaming on HBO Max).

“Home Fries” (1998): Hear ye, hear ye, all “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” completists. Step right up and see where it all began. 

Vince Gilligan’s tightly plotted ‘90s comedy is smarter, more wholesome and darker than your average brightly lit, A-list film from that era. More than anything, it resembles a sneaky Coen Brothers film.

The story is deceptively simple. A fast food worker (Drew Barrymore, again) gets knocked up by a local married stiff. After the two meet up at her drive through window, he gets chased by a helicopter which quite literally scares him to death. 

There’s a lot more plot, misunderstandings and “Hey! They’re in this” character actor action but it’s more fun if you discover all that yourself.

What I loved most was seeing the germs of “Breaking Bad” strewn throughout. Forced perspective angles. Crime at fast food restaurants. Nonsensical violence. Homespun witticisms.

All the touchstones are there- the only difference is the genre.

Final verdict: If you ever wondered what “Breaking Bad” would have been like had they dialed down the drama, here’s your sweet, conniving and at times sinister answer (Streaming on HBO Max).

“Conan Needs A Friend” with Simon Rich: This is an oldie but a goodie. Rich, the quietly brilliant creator and showrunner for both “Man Seeking Woman” and “Miracle Workers,” is only on this podcast for about 30 minutes in between Conan banter with his assistant Sona, but boy, does he make a dent.

In his brief time on the show, the two elite comedy writers share invaluable tricks like 1.) when you write for villains, you need to give them a crutch so they become likable. Think Mr. Burns’ age, Stewy being a baby, Cartman’s…everything. You can’t help but root for them. Never thought of that.

Or, Rich’s writing style. He used to 2.) watch “Kids In The Hall” and read Richard Yeats during the commercial breaks. As a result, he decided to mash up extreme absurdism with heartbreaking, grounded realism. I’d say this style is a now dominant comedy subgenre (Exhibit A: “Everything Everywhere All At Once”) and he was at the forefront of the movement.

Finally, the most valuable piece of all which is 3.) “Don’t massage crazy premises. Get into it.” If you have a left-field idea for a story, jump right into it. Don’t make us wait. YES. I’m guilty of breaking this rule all the time. Now’s mine and your chance to change that.

There’s a lot of other fun conversational tidbits like how both Conan and Simon Rich liked casting Hader and Hartman as oily types when they wrote at SNL and how Mulaney told Conan to walk into his show late at a “kings pace” but what separates this episode and podcast as a whole from others is that Conan has an encyclopedic memory when it comes to comedy. Most other hosts say “So and so is so funny. They just are.” Conan recalls everything. As always, specificity in comedy is king and he never minces words or forgets a thing. It’s what separates the cream from the crop.

Sam Elliott, BJ Novak and Peter Dinklage WTFs: All three of these episodes of WTF generated buzz for being controversial long, long ago. Elliott for his off-base comments on “The Power Of The Dog” which came after a mellow conversation about coming up in Hollywood in the late ‘60s; Dinklage for his outrage toward Disney for glorifying dwarves in the new “Snow White” adaptation after a low-key chat about Dinklage’s days acting in what I believe was the former Annoyance Theater by the Williamsburg Bridge in the early ‘90s and Novak for his combative relationship with Maron coming to light. 

That being said, the first two episodes are fairly mundane and have one odd headlines-grabbing moment; the third is full of juicy, heated tension. For something recorded in a garage on an afternoon solely for the purpose to promote an FX show, sparks really fly. All great entertainment. More than 1300 episodes in, Maron still has it. Love when podcasts maintain their juice and never phone it in.

• Much ink has been spilled on the topic of the comedy film going to the wayside but the genre still has a few gasps left in the tank. Here’s what I saw (plus, one TV trailer).

“On The Count Of Three” starring Jerrod Carmichael and Christopher Abbott: This triggering Sundance darling about a murder-suicide is finally getting its overdue release. “OTCOT” looks incredibly bleak but also screamingly funny. Can’t wait for this one. This may just be the daring comedy that gets people talking about comedies again. You heard it here first (although “Everything Everywhere All At Once” may have beaten them there).

“Senior Year” trailer starring Rebel Wilson: Wilson makes the best fish out of water comedies. In a similar vein to “Isn’t It Romantic,” the Aussie actress spoofs the “too old for high school” trope in a way I haven’t seen before. This one’s coming to Netflix but has theatrical potential all over it.

“Unplugging” starring Matt Walsh, Eva Longoria, Johnny Pemberton, Nicole Byer, Lea Thompson. Digital detox is prime fodder for comedy in 2022. “What happens when we put away our phones” is a perfectly relatable premise for all. Look at you, you’re looking at your phone right now! I caught you. Anyhow, this lo-res, low-stakes, low-budget comedy most likely won’t age well but still looks enjoyable. Plus, that cast is full of ringers. I expect many great improv moments.

“Kids in the Hall” trailer. The show is back. It looks darker and a bit out of step and outdated. Still, it’s the freaking “Kids In The Hall. Can’t wait to binge this revived series.

• Now, for two last super quick recommendations and then I’m good for the week.

- Will Purpura recommended I check out Joe Wong’s Letterman sets. Wow. This guy has got the goods. His silly jokes about “being the youngest baby” and “strawberries being called that because they go in smoothies” were impressive but Wong’s joke weaving, bizarre logic and legitimately rewarding callbacks is what threads these hall of fame level sets together. Then, make sure to binge the rest of his Letterman appearances. They’re delightful. My only complaint? Wong should be one of the biggest stars in comedy, not one of its best-kept secrets.

- In the Bill Hader episode of “Fly On The Wall,” Hader alludes to a sketch of his called “Firehouse Incident” from his SNL days. Holy kittens. Go in knowing absolutely nothing. You’re in for a 5.5-minute treat of ridiculousness.

• I’ll leave you with that. You probably have some stuff going on. Get to that. 

Appreciate you reading and I’ll see ya next week, ya filthy animal

Comedy Stray Notes April 25, 2022

• When I started writing this newsletter in January 2019, I was doing a lot of stand up. Every weekday, I’d leave work and scuttle from open mic to open mic honing the craft of turning thoughts and stories into fabricated punchline-laden bits.

Once March 2020 hit, I pivoted. As much as I love stand up comedy, it was never my end goal or real passion. I was always after a spot in a writer’s room or directing sketch comedy full-time. That’s why I moved to New York. The goal was to immerse myself in those scenes but somehow fell in with stand up and couldn’t ever leave.

Anyway, this is all a long way to say that I performed for the first time in two months yesterday and bombed.

Arizona friend and stand up stalwart Michael Palladino was visiting and hosting a storytelling show at Astoria’s QED. In my head, I had a game plan- tell the story of when I passed out and hit my head on the kitchen sink in the middle of the night.

Perfect for comedy. Well, not really but with a deft hand it could be funny. Anything can.

Rather than rehearsing like I used to swear by, I lazily read articles on the train and listened to Roxy Music (“Love Is the Drug” is my current jam) thinking I could skate by on charisma alone.

At 3 p.m., I ambled into the show/mic. The setlist was swimming in my head. I was thinking “Should I bring my phone onstage to read my bits?” No one else did. Dang. I don’t want to be the one guy that does then. So, I rehearse the set in my head rather than fully pay attention to the other comics.

I go up. Right out of the gate, I feel rusty and break the first rule of performing which is always go onstage smiling to make the crowd feel at ease.

As for the set, there were chuckles here and there. No real laughter but acknowledgement that the words I was saying were humorous at times.

Then, when I got to my big closer, a line that’s worked in many a conversation, it fell completely flat.

Woof.

That’s one me. I garbled it.

Somehow, I let all of this bother me. 

I shouldn’t. I rarely perform, I barely prepared, I don’t care all that much about stand up. I didn’t really do anything that would warrant a good set.

What did I learn from all of this?

You can’t feel sorry for yourself if you bomb and don’t put in the least bit of effort.

Who knows when I will go up again? All I know is that when I do- I won’t slack. Bombing makes you feel so bad that you’ll dwell on it for way too long.

The next set might suck but at least I’ll have tried.* 

*Check back in two months when I bomb again and wonder why.

• Podcasts, like most long-form creative projects, have an interesting life cycle. I find that when people announce them, friends and family are super supportive. However, after a few episodes, the fanfare dies down. It’s a bummer to see the support fade out as folks find their voices. Therefore, I’d like to shout out three pods I’ve listened to recently that you should get into ASAP (By the way, I got them links I know you love in them comments).

1.) Micah Walsh’s brilliantly titled “I’ll Grieve You With This,” only five episodes deep, is a gentle, vulnerable gem of a series where he speaks with guests who have recently dealt with loss of loved ones. In the episode I caught, Micah and Ben Wasserman chat amicably about how the two of them have processed the respective passings of their dads. They treat the heavy subject matter with a light touch, taking time to share what their pops’ senses of humor was like while also exploring how grief can hit you all at once months after events had transpired. Plus, as a bonus, you can hear the material the two of them performed to help cope with their newfound situations. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s great. Can’t wait to hear more.

2.) Sometimes, bros just need to be bros. That’s definitely the case with Max Fine and Michael Rowland’s infectious “In The Minivan” podcast. The show is mostly just two best friends throwing out silly bits and using a looping recorder to create hypnotic goofy beats but what I found most compelling about the show was the co-host’s genuine enthusiasm for music. Their love of Danny Elfman’s Oingo Boingo and Isaiah Rashad felt pre-algorithmic. The two talk over songs explaining what they love about them and as a listener you fall in love with groups like Future Islands all over again.

3.) Barak Ziv turned me on to Matthew Broussard and Laura Sogar’s excellent “She Does Stand Up Too” a while back and I’ve been steadily listening to episodes for months now where this comedy couple speak with Comedy Central development executives as well as share proper joke writing structure, secrets from the road and how to score at NACA. All valid but my favorite thing I heard on the podcast was actually their insight on improv where the two sung the value of onstage make ‘em ups saying that “once you’re comfortable onstage improvising, stand up is a breeze since you have material to fall back on.”

• You may recall that my sexy wife Anna Paone is very preggy. She’s due July 15. Word on the street is that once baby pops out, you don’t watch as many movies as you used to.

So, these past few weeks, I’ve gone on a bit of a “cinematic rumspringa” seeing everything that’s been on my to-watch list for too long. Since there’s so many here (six!) I’m going to do my best to keep it short. 

I doubt I’ll succeed (Editor’s note: He doesn’t.) (Editor’s Editor’s note: Matt is the editor. Just in case you were wondering who this “Editor” was).

Now, get ready for overly critical reviews from a dude who ate it at a supportive storytelling mic this weekend. 

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” (2022): I’m no huge Nicolas Cage-ophile. He’s an interesting, fearless actor who occasionally touches greatness but more often veers wildly into the “so bad it’s good” neighborhood.

Needless to say, I was pretty stoked for this.

I’ll cut to the chase here- I didn’t like this conventionally absurd movie which egregiously ripped off Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius title and meta “JVCD” concept starring Jean Claude Van Damme.

Sure, Cage is a blast and a half, but the New York Times review put it best- this is a one-joke movie that they keep playing over and over (Editor’s note: the rest of their review was generally positive).

What bothered me most was that the flick never fully went the absurd “embrace craziness” “Austin Powers” route or the super grounded, high stakes, slice of life direction. Instead, they stuck with a pointless middle ground that ironically felt weightless for a movie about “unbearable weight.”

“TUWoMT” practically smirks and mugs at the camera begging you to acknowledge how clever it is (“I hate when two characters in comedies just talk” the two characters in a comedy say at one point) with its billion references to previous Cage enterprises. Yes, I know that’s what I signed up for with this movie and while some jokes land super hard (let’s just say “Paddington 2 is the real star of the film), this moving picture really didn’t for me.  

Verdict: Based on all the mid-budget movies that didn’t get theatrical releases due to the pandemic, I’ve gotten used to streaming comedies. This definitely felt more like a streamer than a movie worthy of the big screen.

STRAY, STRAY NOTE: Ike Barinholtz completely steals this movie. Every scene he’s in is straight up electric.

“Pig” (2021): To prep for “TMWoUT,” I checked out Cage’s latest super critically acclaimed “film.” 

I’m starting to think that Nicolas Cage is like a restaurant or band that you keep hearing about how great it is and once you finally get around to experiencing it, the hype/expectations are so high that you’re left feeling empty.

Anyhow, ol’ cynical me found this neorealist take on “John Wick” about a former renowned chef turned drifter (Cage) who has completely unplugged following his wife’s untimely death to be fairly standard fare. 

It’s drab, dreary and all about a sad man’s love of his missing pig until BAM Cage delivers a knockout monologue at a restaurant where he tells one of his former proteges that “he becomes a little less of himself that he doesn’t follow his dreams.”

For a brief moment, my high expectations were realized.

Soon after, it’s more pig negotiations with a troubled father and son.

Verdict: Hate to roast “Pig” but it felt undercooked (sorry, always wanted to write HAMMY movie critic puns) (Streaming on Hulu).

Stray, Stray Note: I could have paid more attention. I expect backlash here. Tell me I’m wrong! @ me! Do it!

“Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck In Time” (2021): In 2015, when people still donated to Kickstarters, I gave $15 to this movie that took filmmaker Bob Weide over 30 years to make.

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions” radicalized me as a high school freshman and I had to pay my respects.

Cut to 2021, the movie is released theatrically and Kickstarter donors are sent screeners. Well, except for me. $15 didn’t qualify although an assistant did accidentally email me “Does this guy qualify for a screener” in an email meant for their boss.

So, I waited like everyone else for a streaming release.

Although I felt slighted by the film’s creators for not letting me see the movie ahead of time because $15 wasn’t enough of a contribution (although it’s more than the price of a movie ticket in many major markets), I have finally seen the movie on Hulu like the masses.

It’s uneven.

Transcendent in places to be sure though. Simple insights about Kurt’s writing like his style was inspired by a) Laurel and Hardy making him laugh during the Great Depression and b) writing for the high school newspaper where he got instant reactions from his peers gave me a much greater understanding of why his work is so digestible. His style is economical and he never buries the lede (yep, it’s spelled that way, not “lead”).

Found footage here breaks your heart. As a lifelong fan, it was rewarding to see his elusive siblings I’ve read so much about over the years plus his children and adopted nephews I didn’t know so much about. Then, there’s the sullen father who could barely make ends meet. His two wives, both of whom he sadly didn’t treat all that well too. Also, a scene where he interacts with classmates at a 50th year high school anniversary. It’s a bit of sensory overload.

However, the documentary’s raison d’etre (and worth all $15) is the brief section where Kurt reads an excerpt from the aforementioned “Breakfast of Champions.”

It goes:

 “This is a very bad book you’re writing,” I said to myself. 

“I know,” I said.

“You’re afraid you’ll kill yourself the way your mother did,” I said. 

“I know,” I said.

How this deceased man from Indiana has the ability to write something that feels more personal to me than my own writing still mesmerizes me to this day.

Why is this doc uneven?

The movie centers heavily on Weide’s ongoing relationship with Kurt that obstructs the sanctity of telling Vonnegut’s story cleanly.

I like Weide (despite my not getting to screen the film early) but what makes Kurt special is every reader has their own history with him. By inserting your story into his, the viewer’s memories with Kurt melts away.

As a superfan, I was a bit offended. Kurt’s for everyone but it always felt like he was writing for just me. I’m sure Weide felt the same. As did everyone else.

Verdict: Essential viewing for all Vonnegut fans. Don’t know who Kurt is? This is a great place to start too (Streaming on Hulu).

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” (2022): Even though we’re all glued to our social media and more connected than ever, rarely does a movie break through the noise in 2022. TV shows, sure. We all talked about “Severance,” “Succession” and “Euphoria” as a collective. Movies though? Nah.

Somehow, miraculously, the chatter surrounding this curio exploded on the internet in early April. Many were prematurely pronouncing “EEAAO” their favorite movie ever.

I was worried that these glowing reviews would cloud my perception of this Michelle Yeoh starrer.

Surely it couldn’t live up to the hype?

Yes. Yes it did. This might be my favorite movie ever now too.

To keep it brief, an exhausted laundromat owner (Yeoh) is overwhelmed by life. Mounting taxes, a visiting father and a strained relationship with her daughter all weigh heavily on her. Sounds like a great jumping off point for an A24 indie.

Nope. This movie is not that.

Well, it is that.

But we’ll get back to that.

“Everything Everywhere All At Once,” like the everything bagel it so frequently refers to, is a lot. It’s a kitchen sink of slapstick comedy, jaw dropping kung fu training montages and fight sequences, philosophy, ‘80s worship (Que Huy Quan AKA Data in “The Goonies” has still got it- this is how you pay respect to a film icon, “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” creators), Marvel parody, gross out humor, a goofy Pixar homage, Luis Bunel absurdism, and unfiltered, raw “It’s A Wonderful Life” like sentimentality that’ll make you bawl.

Plus, it parodies “profound” A24 films along the way too. Told you we’d get back to that.

The film’s “try anything” strategy ends up taking audiences to the strangest places imaginable like a multiverse where people have hot dogs for hands and somehow imbue this bizarre reality with dramatic heft rather than just out and out silliness because The Daniels (the co-directing team) recognize that, at the end of the day, it’s all about characters and everything else is noise and window dressing.

It’s messy and imperfect too. An editor who didn’t want to tie up all the loose ends could trim this 2.5 hour bad boy down to a more manageable and possibly more enjoyable 1 hour and 45 minutes. There’s even a beautiful stopping point about an hour before the movie ends and then it just keeps chugging along.

But this is a damn movie called “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” There is no restraint and nor should there be.

Rather than give away too much (although you should know that Jamie Lee Curtis, Jenny Slate and James Hong all steal the show multiple times), I simply implore you to take this journey.

Final verdict: I make the bed in the morning to Son Lux’s “John Williams meets video games” score from the film. I recommend this movie to everyone I talk to. I frequently think about how the bar for movies has officially been raised thanks to this movie. Yup, this one’s an all-time classic that has to be seen in theaters. Go support it now so we can get more from The Daniels soon.

“Matinee” (1993): I’m a longtime Nathan Rabin fanboy. He’s easily in the pantheon of greatest/most readable internet scribes and to this day he continues to unleash trenchant film criticism on his site nathanrabin.com.

Around a month ago, he wrote about “Matinee,” a 1993 Joe Dante flick I’d had on my “to-watch” list for years.

So, I figured this was the perfect time to drop $3.99 on Amazon Prime and live my film rumspringa truth.

While I recommend you read Rabin’s loving, comprehensive review, I’ll give you some quick takeaways about this fantastic love letter to ‘60s moviegoing.

“Matinee” is a deceptively simple story about an army brat family that lands in Fort Lauderdale at the height of Cuban Missile Crisis paranoia. Our youngish teen hero is placed at a school reminiscent of “Freaks and Geeks” and “Sandlot” baked in Americana nostalgia (the filmmakers even wedge in great throwaway jokes about the era like “Food groups are meats. “Bacon for breakfast, burger or pork sandwich for lunch”) but the kid dreams of the multiplex.

At the nearby movie palace, sensationalist filmmaker Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman evoking Bill Veeck-like showmanship for movies) is preparing an immersive motion picture experience unlike any before it. The build up and subsequent execution of his body horror “Mant” film within a film are what truly make “Matinee” stick out. Dante goes to great pains to spell out what he loves about the movies via Goodman monologues that wax poetic about the magic of the concession stands and how “movies are meant to scare the living daylights out of you and then lull you back into a sense of security” and then BOOM! He has his cake and eats it too, showing us what his dream film is (“Mant”) and how he’d imagine a crowd would react to it.

Fantasy and reality collide in a way that got me thinking. 

This interactive, exciting experience is exactly what would get people regularly going back to the theaters in 2022. By reaching back into the past in 1993, Dante may have come up with a template for how to keep the film industry alive.

Final verdict: A film about our collective love affair with film and how they warp our psyche from a young age? Yeah, it for me (Streaming on Amazon Prime for $3.99).

“Crazy People” (1990): I believe Matt Ruby wrote about this film a year or so ago. Took note, threw the title in a Google Drive doc and told myself I’d see it someday. All the fun stuff lives in the Google drive docs, right? If I did half of the things I said I wanted to do in my to-do lists, that’d be grand.

I digress.

This dated Dudley Moore satire that tries to be a crossover “Network” / “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” hybrid unfortunately succeeds at being neither as it gets wrapped up in the trappings of a formulaic 80s comedy. 

To keep things simple, I’ll get the plot out of the way. Moore plays an ad exec with out of the box ideas that are so “honest,” he gets committed to a mental hospital. There, he…hooks up with Darryl Hannah (like one does once they’re in a hospital of course) and then the ad company exploits the patients to use their “caaa-raaazy ideas.” Some of their ads were admittedly funny. I liked the snappy “Volvos: We’re boxy but good.”

However, the best laugh of all comes at the very end of the credits. A disclaimer reads, “Mental health is very serious. Get help when needed.” Then, an image of the patients making goofy “caaa-raaazy” faces flashes onscreen. They really saved the best joke for last.

Final verdict: Only for Dudley Moore completists (Available on YouTube for $3.99).

• My film professor Joe Fortunato has been on the edge of his seat waiting for my review of last week’s SNL episode with Lizzo.

Joe, this one’s for you, amigo.

I’ll rate each sketch “professor style” in Joe’s honor.

A’s:

Lizzo’s monologue: One of the most high energy, fun hosts of the season immediately brought a real sense of fun to the proceedings right out of the gate. Loved that she wanted to set a record for most times saying “B*tch” in an episode and immediately shouted out her mom afterwards. Heck, don’t let Lizzo become a quick five-timer; make her a cast member.

Trivia Game Show: At first, I was upset when I saw the crew setting up a game show set. Yet, as soon as they got into the “game” of the “game show sketch” (see why they use this format so often? So easy to play “games” this way), I changed my tune. Lizzo breaking down everything that sucks about game shows is…a perfect game. Would put this in a “Best Of SNL Game Show” compilation in a heartbeat.

B’s:

TikTok: These quick hit replications of the TikTok experience are fun. Everyone can do their own weird thing a la “SNL At Home” in April-May 2020. Building callbacks and a narrative into this recurring bit was a nice touch too. Also, this sketch is proof once again that James Austin Johnson should be in everything, not just trotting out Trump.

Black Eyed Peas: It’s well known that breaking down rap lyrics in stand up is considered hacky. However, when you have talented voice actors recreating the song it elevates the parody. Cecily Strong singing dumb lyrics as Fergie? Way better than a dude like me saying, “Boom Boom Pow makes no sense and here’s the reasons why.”

Please Don’t Destroy’s Writer’s Block: As much as I champion these bros, I’m getting a bit tired of their quickly edited writer’s room shtick. Having them brainstorm dumb songs with Lizzo was fine but I think they’re going to need some kind of reinvention (I’m sure I’ll bite my tongue on this one next episode). Points for John Higgins’ spontaneous made up song though.

Weekend Update: As usual, I don’t remember many or any of the Jost or Che jokes. My loss. However, I’ll never forget Melissa Villasenor’s Uber driver character attempting comedy and subsequently crossing a personal line making jokes at her nephew’s expense. The whole spiel reminded me of Fred Armisen’s “bad stand up” anti-comedy correspondents back in the day but this one had genuine kindness in its heart that made it feel special.

C’s:

Twerking flute: As soon as I saw the orchestra, I predicted the game immediately: Lizzo’s gonna turn up with these stodgy musicians. She certainly did. This was fun but not exactly funny.

Beanie Baby Sale: The 10-1 where Andrew Dismukes freaks when he finds out his Beanie Babies have no value started fine and then quickly took a sharp left turn into Tim Robinson appropriation. I swear Dismukes was straight up impersonating him. Either this sketch was left over from Robinson’s years at the show or he’s a huge fan.

D’s:

Six Flags: Something about this sketch really rubbed me the wrong way. It was too referential, too dumb and then too sentimental to really do anything for me. It felt like I was watching something straight out of the maligned 1980-81 season. 

Throne Room: At a certain point, I tuned out. The elaborate world building and set were impressive; they were just trying waaaay too many things here. I love ensemble pieces but “Throne Room” was mad clunky and even a bit icky.

F’s:

Cold open: Opening with the Easter Bunny, then throwing to Fauci, followed by Mikey Day as Musk (pre-owning Twitter) was once again a case of the “too much’s.” Cohesiveness and focus is what fans crave; as wild as the TikTok sketch and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” are, both are far more unified than these political sketches that feel like checklists where the writers tick off all the current events of the week they want to comment on. Save that for Weekend Update.

All that being said, yes, James Austin Johnson as Trump was very funny once again. 

Overall thoughts: Nearly every sketch ended with sentimental beats this go-round. Head writers, stop using this crutch. This is a crutch I use and I’ve never gotten paid to write a make ‘em up.

Also, no one’s talking about it but I think this is Moffatt’s last season. The guy looks lost out there and doesn’t have much of a purpose in a post-Eric Trump world.

Cut for time:

Costco meeting: Some of the crowd’s laughs seemed forced but once the three singers (Bowen, Aidy, Lizzo) started trashing the competition via song, the sketch really set sail.

Food and YouTube: A low-key ode to eating food and watching YouTube that decides to go down a well-earned left-field rabbit hole mid-sketch? Genuinely bummed this weird, smart music vid was cut.

• Well, that’s another way, way, way too long Stray Notes in the books.

Hope you enjoyed reading this on the toilet, fam

Comedy Stray Notes April 18, 2022

• Some comics are so unique, so singular, so different from everyone else, that they become a type.

Gilbert Gottfried was the type’s type.

In fact, he was so unlike anyone else that putting him in a movie or tv show felt like cheating. Every time Gilbert's name was in the credits, you knew it would be good.

“Aladdin.” Comedy Central roasts. A documentary about his life.

His uncensored screech brought an anarchic, freewheeling sensibility to everything his toothy grin showed up in. Put it this way: If you told me Gilbert was in something, I would see it.

I mean I can’t think of anyone else that would make people want to watch a ten-minute super cut of every time they were on “Celebrity Apprentice” besides Gilbert. 

Heck, I’d even watch Cameos he did for random people wishing them a happy birthday or anniversary with a vulgar sincerity.

Give the man a thankless role. He’ll thrive.

All that being said, the greatest Gilbert moment is a small one from the 2016 documentary “Life, Animated.” The doc tells the story of a young, autistic man named Owen Suskind who was unable to speak for years unitl he saw “Aladdin” and regained his ability to speak impersonating Gottfried’s Iago voice. 

Mid-movie, we see Suskind performing as Iago for friends. Then, Gottfried pulls the old “I just happened to walk in” trick, entering in character and blowing Owen’s mind.

Seeing the level of pure joy Gilbert brought to this guy’s life will forever be imprinted in my brain. To me, it’s even richer than Gottfried's other most iconic moments like the infamous “Aristocrats” bit after his intentionally tasteless 09/11 joke bombed at the 2001 Hugh Hefner roast or when he called Trump “Mein Fuhrer” on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Anyhow, back to “Life, Animated.”

The two men share a great interaction after the fact. Owen waits in line for a Gilbert autograph and rather than making the moment soggy, Gilbert says, “You don’t look familiar to me. Get off the line!”

Perfect way to undercut the sentimentality and keep the character alive for an adoring fan.

Gilbert, always brash, loud-mouthed, and a foul, full-on assault on the senses, also indirectly taught me a few things along the way about performing.

Most importantly, if you can play a “character” or do a voice onstage, it’s not a crutch. It’s a weapon. Sure, the most important tools in every comedian’s arsenal are truth and honesty but having a funny voice or “saying things funny” certainly doesn’t hurt.

As much as I love “truth,” I’d rather see Gilbert entertain any day of the week.

Like everyone else, I still wish he was here. I dreamed of “cheating” and using his talents in projects one day. Anna Paone’s dad, who was a much bigger fan than me, did the same and actually wrote a fantastic role for him in his farce “Certifiably Yours.”

Sadly, we’ll never get to see him perform it.

As is the case when a comedy giant passes, I spent the week reading tributes and catching up on Gilbert projects I missed during his life. 

If you want to read more, the remembrances in the New York Times, The Ringer and Decider are all exceptional.

Yet, once again, it’s his appearance on WTF that stands head and shoulders above the rest. I particularly enjoyed a dark section where Gilbert discussed his own mortality. No need to spoil a punchline of his but it’s perfectly Gottfried-ian: pitch black humor but funny as hell because of the way he delivers it.

RIP, Gilbert. 

As many have already said, the creator of the joke that was “too soon” was cruelly taken from us “too soon.”

Side note: It is VERY hard to do a good Gilbert impression. At least for me. Anna gave me a trick though. Saying, “MR. TRUMP '' in his voice is an easy shorthand to mastering it. Might not work for you but somehow that unique screech fell into place for my voice.

• While Gilbert’s legacy looms large over the week in comedy, I’d like to share a few other tidbits.

• My days of running shows in the city are over. However, I do love seeing what my friends are putting on. This past Wednesday, I headed to West Side Comedy Club to catch Danny Braff’s “Best Side @ West Side” featuring headliner, former U.S. Senator  Al Franken.

Seeing Al live was interesting. He essentially performed what I would call a “one-man Wikipedia” where he hopped from one life event story to another moving from growing up Jewish in Minnesota, time spent at Harvard, his years at SNL, time served on the Senate, his disdain for Tucker Carlson, all while skipping his cancellation. It was a timid choice not to address the elephant in the room and likely left more than a few audience members, including myself, scratching our heads.

Anyhow, I have to give kudos to Danny. The man can really put butts in seats. For years, I struggled with getting any audience members to my shows. I’d email people, send direct messages, offer presents and fries to get people to come out to see free comedy. 

Danny packs houses with ease. Not only is the man a gifted comic, he’s got a knack for promotion as well. Hit up one of his shows if you can- it’s a master class in how to pack a room.

• Every month or so, I meet up with my friend Matt Storrs in an Astoria diner. 

We catch up, shoot the breeze, order soups or fries and then get down to business. 

The two of us set a timer, open our laptops and silently sit across from each other and write for 40 minutes.

While seemingly simple, it sometimes feels like the only creatively productive time I have. I don’t know if it’s the diner setting or feeling that the person sitting across from me is working hard so I have to too but it seems to be the best way to force myself to get back to writing my pilot or turning premises into jokes. 

This time around, Anna joined us and felt the magic too. As soon as you start clacking away in a booth, your mind settles in and goes into overdrive.

Steal this productivity hack and let me know if it works for you too.

• Patrick Hastie releases a recap of his year in stand up annually. I’ve been reading these pithy, insightful looks back at his growth as a performer for probably seven years now and with each one, he teaches me something new.

This year, my favorite excerpt from his 11th year in comedy was the following set of paragraphs:

“Last year, once the vaccines started rolling out, I thought shit was gonna go back to normal for me. I watched so many friends who were back out doing shows and traveling and writing and *fOLlOwInG TheIR DreAmS* and I assumed that would happen for me. “I’ll go back to stand up full time when I get the vaccine” is what I kept thinking and saying and hoping.

But I didn’t. 

If anything, I got more in my head.”

Too relatable. This is exactly how I felt last year and hearing that someone else was going through the same thing was such a relief.

The rest of his breakdown of the past year is equally insightful, funny and engrossing.

• Happy mid-Passover, it really is one of the great long holidays

Comedy Stray Notes April 11, 2022

• Sometimes when you reach into the back of your fridge, you find something you meant to eat weeks before that somehow smells ok and hasn’t expired. It’s a beautiful thing.

Anyway, that’s what I’m going for with this installment of Stray Notes. I wanted to write about all of these things when they happened but I’ve been too tied up to get around to highlighting all the leftovers from these past few weeks.

So, as Pete Holmes says after he transitions from ad copy to actual interviews on his pod, “let’s get into it.”

• Back in February, I did an open mic at QED. When I left work that day, I wasn’t prepared to perform and had mentally made plans to write a perfect set on the train which, as everyone knows, never works.

Thing was, while I was on the train, it was one of those rare occasions where I was going stupid viral on Twitter and couldn’t focus. The dopamine high was out of control. So, rather than try to BS a set, I went onstage with disparate notes about going stupid viral and tried my best to explain what this superficial high feels like.

My four minute-set went really well (by my lowered standards) so I put the most fun snippets on TikTok.

Also, I want to let it be known that I’m self aware enough to appreciate the irony that my video about GOING viral has had the exact opposite effect.

• Continuing with the trend where I talk about things from a month ago, I started a dumb Twitter thread which felt like the best writing I did all year in mid-March.

It started with a poorly worded tweet that reads, “If we American men got drafted for WWIII, we’d meet our fellow soldiers and be like, ‘Yo, I follow you on IG, I can’t believe we’re battling together’” (Elon, deploy the edit button NOW so we can punch up our bits).

However, after I wrote that dumb joke, I couldn’t stop adding tags. All in all, I tweeted 30ish alternate bits based on this premise. For a few hours, I was a man possessed and I couldn’t stop making jokes about what military life would be like for soft, WFH millennial bros such as myself.

Feel free to roast softies like me in the thread with a joke or two of your own. I’d love for this bit to live on forever.

• One of my favorite comedians, Greg Orme, is taking a brief respite from performing stand up to focus on other creative ventures. Although I haven’t seen Greg perform in years since his move to Salt Lake City, the comedy world is a little darker knowing that he won’t be gracing the stage in the foreseeable coming years. 

Open mics and bar shows can be a slog but I’ll never forget Greg’s trademark deadpan delivery that was simultaneously reminiscent of the best of both Norm MacDonald and Steven Wright. Already looking forward to the day he returns to hawking jokes to future fans of his whether it will be in NYC or SLC.

• Lucas Connolly is known for his high wire, high level crowd work in New York City’s comedy circles. I’ve seen him host and roast crowds with the best of them for years and now that he’s started documenting his best moments on TikTok, anybody with an account can too. As a fan of Lucas’, I’d suggest you start with his “Can I stay at your place” gag he has with an audience member that turns from amusingly creepy into abundantly joyous back into amusingly creepy all in 20 seconds. That’s comedy.

• Super late here but about a month ago, I watched Sam Evans’ stand up clip about getting COVID on repeat for days. In said quickie video, Sam brilliantly compares getting COVID this late into the game with…

I’m not going to tell you. Watch the video instead if you haven’t already. I won’t do it justice here and once you see the joke yourself, you’ll be playing this brilliant bit on a loop too.

• Now, we jump into the “every movie, tv show, podcast and impressive piece of comedy I saw over the past few weeks” section of the newsletter. While what you see below may seem like a lot, please know that I omitted quite a bit for brevity’s sake. I’m a big fan of brevity; I just can never get around to actually making it happen.

“Salesemen” (2022): Robert Pooley’s naturalistic and funny indie about three vacuum salesmen at a crossroads in their lives is a perfect slice of life comedy. The three salesmen (Orlando Baxter, Will Noonan and Cory Rodrigues) bring stand up chops and understated pathos to their roles and in turn, the 80-minute flick alternates between laugh out loud funny and melancholy weightiness effortlessly.

Plus, there’s a nicely realized extended cameo from Stavros Halkias that quietly blossoms from what seems to be a scene-stealing five-minute appearance into the film’s crux. EXCELLENT SCREENWRITING, PERFORMANCES AND PAYOFFS ELEVATE THIS INDIE (Streaming on Amazon for $3.99).

“Full Capacity” (2021): Right when the pandemic was winding down for the first time in summer 2021, comic Sam Morril and a documentarian took a camera around New York City to capture a moment in time when comedy was slowly returning to the clubs.

Audiences were rude, comics were rusty, reminiscences were had about how great “hangs” are. My two favorite sequences though have nothing to do with the weight of that now distant past. They were a) footage from rising star Caitlin Peluffo’s triumphant Comedy Cellar debut and b) a homeless dude defecating on the street in the background of a serious interview. A PERFECT WAY TO RELIVE THE JOY AND HOPE OF SUMMER 2021 (Streaming on YouTube).

“Drive My Car” (2021): Want to know how long ago I saw this movie? My wife Anna Paone and I caught it at a time when the only news Will Smith had recently made was that he wasn’t going to be in the serious “Fresh Prince” reboot.

All of that has nothing to do with this nearly three-hour adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story. Just wanted to point it out.

Anyhow, “Drive My Car” shot to number one on many Oscar prognosticator’s Best Picture power rankings before the now infamous ceremony. Having not seen it, I scrambled on the final weekend to get it in before the award show to make sure I’d seen all the nominees like any self-respecting snob.

After completing the marathon watch, I am sad to admit that I am “that guy” that didn’t quite get the hype.

The film starts promisingly enough. A role play activity between a married couple is a piece of intimacy so private that viewers are no longer passive audience members; we’re voyeurs. We’re off to the races. Things then fall apart from there for the couple.

Infidelity, death, intentionally bad pasted-on mustaches all ensue.

I should mention that that’s all before the opening credits that inexplicably take place 45 minutes into the film.

Our star, Yusuke Kafuku (a pensive Hidetoshi Nishijima) then heads to Hiroshima to spearhead a production of “Uncle Vanya” as part of an extended residency. Once there, through a bit of expositional dialogue, it’s explained that he won’t be allowed to drive himself while on the trip and has been assigned a responsible chauffeur. The two strike up a meaningful, quiet friendship that culminates in a smoldering wallop of a set piece that accurately captures how deep guilt can fracture itself into our fabric as human beings.

If it sounds like I liked it, I did. It’s a fine film.

However, I do not believe “Drive My Car” is the masterpiece that many others claim it is. Languid driving footage drags the film down, padding its already exorbitant runtime. Meanwhile, fairly static camera work demonstrates that, yeah, great acting is more important than fancy visual tricks but giving the audience something to look at other than faces and cars doesn’t hurt either. THERE’S A GREAT 90-MINUTE FEATURE HIDING IN THIS 180-MINUTE MARATHON (Streaming on HBO Max).

“Tick Tick Boom!” (2021): “The tortured artist desperate to get their work seen” is one of my all-time favorite genres and Lin Manuel Miranda’s slammin’ directorial debut dips its toes into the biopic pool with oodles of unwavering confidence and charisma.

In late 80s New York, HIV sweeps through the city and Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield, singin’ dancin’ and actin’ his heart out in an Oscar nominated role) wants to usher in a new era of musicals. This is pre-”Rent” and he dreams in song, focusing every fiber of his being on his creative projects and showcases rather than friendships and romantic relationships. Staged with showstopping, gravity-defying visual panache, the expanse of Larson’s visions whimsically comes together blending harsh reality and flights of fancy together into a highbrow cocktail of musical comedy and heartbreak.

Ol’ Mr. Hamilton himself does allow the material to meander into in-joke territory that leaves uninformed audiences (such as myself) in the dark and veers into on-the-nose treacliness that gives a bit of an on the nose after school special stench to the picture. However, this crowd pleaser has so much going for it, so much sui generis joie de vivre, that there’s no need to knock “Tick Tick Boom;” THIS IS A FUTURE CULT CLASSIC THAT SHOULD BE CELEBRATED (Streaming on Netflix).

• Weird SNL this week.

Jake Gyllenhaal (who I believe should replace Adam Driver in every movie he’s in) hosted for the first time since 2007 which he was quick to point out in his monologue. This time around, he…wanted to sing. A lot.

There were a few standout sketches (the confrontational talk show “Why’d You Like It,” darkly weird “Dream Home Cousins,” strangely intoxicating “Truck Stop CDs” and twisted logic puzzle that was “Couples Counselor” all had fleshed out rhythms and original bits) but they were outnumbered by clunkers (Ketanji Brown cold open, monologue, a flat Weekend Update) and oddities (“Cabaret Night” bordered on “collection of tweets assembled into song,” the overly ambitious “Spring Flowers” tried to do too much rather than stick to a single joke, the befuddling, bizarre “Tombstone” confused me and of course, “Chucky at work,” a fever dream which will haunt America’s nightmares for weeks to come).

There’s more though.

Tonally, this week’s cut for time sketches didn’t quite jibe with the content that makes the air but I loved Kyle Mooney’s mockingly self-important “Serious Night Live” which was yet another rejection for the shaggy haired comic that will have to live on YouTube. We need a “Best Of Kyle Mooney’s shorts that didn’t make it to air.” 

Second up is the “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” parody “Dinner With The Dean.” The joke of the scene takes a minute to reveal itself but once it emerges, it’s so proudly and profoundly dumb that you can’t help but sit back and laugh at just how unintentionally goofy this hoity toity middle aged couple can be.

• Color me very excited for the 2022 release of the upcoming A24 flick “Marcel The Shell with Shoes On.” Adapted from a “now ancient in internet years” webseries (I’m old enough to remember these “webseries”), Jenny Slate will reprise her role as the tiniest main character in history, this time on the silver screen. Although the plot appears to be no great shakes, I already feel like this will be the quotable comedy of 2022 just like last year we had “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar.” 

My foot is asleep on the toilet. That’s enough

Comedy Stray Notes April 7, 2022

• Have you ever been nostalgic for something before it happened? Like when you stepped on a plane and already felt like your vacation was coming to a close?

That’s how I felt all last week.

For over a month, I’d been gearing up for the theatrical debut of my one-act play “Dungeons” directed by mi esposa Anna Paone and starring the talented cast made up of Manny Simmons, Akeyla Wallace and Susan Schnitzer. 

In that short period of time, I saw a goofy script I wrote turn into a living, breathing thing filled with humor and fraught with tension that I couldn’t have ever imagined. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no huge theater fan but when the drama onstage is as good as it was during rehearsals, there’s nothing more visceral. And yeah, this was good. These guys gave me goosebumps like 40 times.

Manny and Akeyla got in each other’s faces and believably created an unspoken, uncomfortable history between their sibling characters. Schnitzer eased the escalating drama dunking on her fictional children. 

Now, the only thing that was left was seeing the play with an audience.

Well, let’s rewind. 

I sort of saw it with a crowd.

Dragonfly, the theater company that put the play up, runs a tech week for six days before the show goes up. For each of those performances, the actors and crew from the other one-acts let out nary a laugh. Although I was still confident the play would work, I’ll admit I was a bit shaken.

Friday rolled around. My mom, dad Andy Levy, brother Ben Levy, uncle Ed Levy, aunt Lisa Pearlstein and friend Russell Dolan showed.

Finally, a real crowd. 

“Dungeons” closed out the five-play lineup. I was backstage for most of the night helping with props and moving furniture on and off the stage.

Then, it was our turn. Cue the “Zelda” music Anna chose.

While setting the stage, I dropped the prop dice that was supposed to go on a folding TV dinner table. We also forgot to put Akeyla’s character’s cape onstage. You gotta roll with the punches. It’s live, baby.

After the stage was set, I quickly and quietly ran to sit with my family. I’d been looking forward to this moment for eight months.

Not even a chuckle for the first few minutes.

Somehow, we started to click with the audience. Jokes landed. The air got sucked out of the room in the appropriate moments. We got real, earned laughs where we’d never imagined them before.

Then, we got close to the end.

If you haven’t seen the play, it becomes pretty emotional leading up to its finale. I don’t know how the actors keep it together because I cry often just watching it. That night, I did it again. Twice. They were happy tears though.

It worked. It really worked.

Afterwards, there was a talkback with the writers and directors. Anna and I got a few lols. After a while, my charm ran out. When you don’t work out your stand up muscle, it gets flabby.

The next night, the play somehow hit even harder than it did at the first show. I got to see it with friends Sam Zelitch (who gave the script a much-needed dramatic punch up), Max Weinbach, Nicky Weinbach and Therese Jaffe all in attendance.

Then, that wave of future nostalgia hit me again. There was just one more show.

Rats.

On Sunday, I made it to the theater early for the final 3 p.m. matinee. Will Purpura, Danny Braff, John Santillana and Jon Turner generously showed.

Bittersweet is the best way to describe this last go-round.

Not our best showing but when it’s the last one it means the most.

Since it ended, a few people have asked what happens next with the play. I don’t know.

However, I do know I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything in the world. 

Thank you, Catherine LaMoreaux, for allowing this script I wrote on a lark to turn into one of the most artistically satisfying experiences of my life.*

*it’s not quite as good as the time an old lady roasted me onstage at a Creek open mic in 2016 though.

• My pal Tom Scudamore is probably the future Lorne Michaels of the U.K., so I’ll do anything that the guy asks.

His most recent request was fairly reasonable. Would Anna and I act in a brilliant sketch that he wrote about Wordle?

The answer was a resounding hell yeah, bro.

So, on an early March evening, Anna and I filmed ourselves playing clueless Wordle creator Josh Wordle and his cheeky, jealous girlfriend Cathy. It took an hour, maybe two, tops. Through the wonders of modern technology, we transferred the footage overseas to Tom and he cut himself in to play our therapist who was in the same room as us.

Yeah, we were in two different continents but thanks to movie magic, it looks like we were five feet away from each other having a conversation.

Anyhow, I highly recommend you give this 2.5-minute sketch that Tom cobbled together a go. Anna’s a hoot in it; I love her delivery of “Ya dumb geek!” Really some of her best work yet.

• Tom Achilles is running his one-man show at the PIT Loft on Friday. 

That’s right. There’s a Tom Achilles one-man show and it’s directed by Sam Zelitch.

Don’t know who Tom Achilles is?

He’s just one of the most offbeat, freshest voices in New York comedy stretching the mundane into the most bizarre performance art comedy I’ve seen after sitting through thousands of hours of comedy.

The fact that you could see Tom rewrite the rules of stand-up for a measly $10 is blasphemy. You should run, NAY, sprint (!) to the show. Friday. 8 p.m. BE THERE.

• It’s very late. I’m tired. Did loads of laundry tonight. However, I still feel a strange sense of obligation to tell you my thoughts about last week’s Jerrod Carmichael SNL. It’s a problem.

To keep this low-key, I’m just going to highlight everything I loved about this episode.

-Great monologue. Jerrod carefully covered “it” without ever mentioning what we all knew he was talking about.

-“Is My Brain Okay” somehow managed to get deep within all of our collective psyches asking a question we all really should ask ourselves every day (seriously, is your brain ok?).. As tired as the game show format is, I appreciate that the staff keeps reinventing the wheel.

-Pete Davidson’s “Short Ass Movies” started slow but by the time Dirt Nasty AKA Simon Rex rhymed about all the classic ‘90s Ernest movies in quick succession I was fully onboard. Then, the dig at “King of Staten Island?” That was the cherry on top.   

-Shop TV started crazy slow and then stretched the limits of what you can get away with on TV. Some of the best visual gags the show’s ever done.

-The “throw a dead man off a cliff” Python-esque sketch subverted all expectations. Andrew Dismukes truly came into his own here too; his delivery of “Here comes the check!” to the distressed family members was the moment he arrived as a tour de force comic performer.

-Kyle Mooney’s conversational overcompensator was so relatable it bordered on unwatchable. However, he sold the character with just the right amount of cluelessness and pathos. Plus, you gotta love the button. Heckuva button. 

-The cut for time “Three Normal Goths” from “Please Don’t Destroy” was my favorite of all. Tight, weird, grounded. Simple idea, superb execution.

• There’s so much more I should have, could have and would have written about but it’ll all come soon. You’re just going to have to be patient, ya know

Comedy Stray Notes March 28, 2022

• Every Tuesday and Thursday for the past month, my wife Anna Paone and I have schlepped on New Jersey Transit. The trips are for rehearsals of “Dungeons,” the one-act play she’s directing. While it may seem arduous to trek out to the Garden State twice a week, I don’t mind at all. In fact, I look forward to these practice runs all day.

That’s because each and every performance, Anna’s actors Manny Simmons, Akeyla Wallace and Susan Schnitzer bring something new to the script.

Seriously, I’ve seen the play over 20 times and I’m still not sick of it.

Together, the four of them have fleshed out their characters, added higher emotional stakes, majorly punched up the dialogue and threw in swashbuckling comedic physical flourishes (yeah, there’s a sword) to what was already a pretty sweet script to begin with (yeah, I’ll admit it, I wrote the play. Sue me).

Now, after over a month of fine-tuning, this one-act will finally be available for audiences on April 1-3 at the DuCret School of Art in Plainfield, New Jersey. 

I cannot wait to see it with a crowd. I’ve got those seventh grade dance butterflies. 

My mind has been racing on a happy loop where I wonder, “How will they react?” “Will that joke work?” “Will they see what we were going for there?” all week. It's the best.

With all that being said, let me sweeten the deal a bit more.

If you come, you’ll get more than just “Dungeons.” That’s right folks, there’s more.

In addition to our play about a feuding brother and sister who happens to be a Dungeon Master, the fest will also showcase “Ten Minutes” directed by Catherine LaMoreaux (an existential meta-commentary on what it means to be a fictional character), “Lady MacBeth is a Freshman in the Ensemble” directed by Julia Stibich (a snarky Gen Z take on behind the scenes high school theater drama), “Egg Salad” directed by Richard Lear (a sweetly melancholy tale of a grieving mother is confronted by her daughters about her lifestyle choices) and “Twang” directed by Diane Parker (a pointed parable centered around a country singer and a convenience store worker meeting for the first time).

Having seen all five live, I can tell you this show is a steal. You’ll be committing theft if you come. That’s how much of a steal it is.

Want tickets? I got you. This link will take care of all your ticketing needs (don’t steal them, the show is already enough of a steal as is).

• A lot more about other projects, movies, tv and podcasts to come next week in a more traditional Stray Notes.

But for now, this is all I got.

I was going to write way more tonight but I’m still reeling from the Will Smith punch heard round the world.

So, that’s all.

See you at the play, my friend

Comedy Stray Notes March 22, 2022

• Last August, my wife Anna Paone and her mom Catherine Lamoreaux’s Dragonfly theater company put out a call for humorous, one-act plays. I’ve written probably 250 sketches in my life but I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that’s fallen in the neighborhood of one-acts other than one written specifically for Zoom. So, this seemed like a fun challenge.

At the time I wasn’t sleeping very well, so I woke up at 5 a.m. every day before work and chipped away at an idea I thought would make a dramatically compelling and somewhat funny story.

The plot was inspired by how awful I am at Dungeons and Dragons. I know what you’re thinking. “You can’t be bad at D&D. It’s not competitive.” To that I say, you haven’t seen me play. I’m the guy that barely listens, rarely understands the game mechanics and has little imagination when it comes to game moves. High fantasy just isn’t in my wheelhouse. So, I mined my poor skills to explore the dynamics between an older sister that really, really cares about world building and her younger brother that doesn’t want to play at all.

After receiving incredibly helpful script notes from my pal Sam Zelitch, I submitted this play I titled “Dungeons” to their company. Yeah, I’ll be the first to point out that it sounds like nepotism I got into their show but I’ll give myself a little bit of credit by saying that their readers blindly chose my script based on quality. Sure, that’s an annoying sentence to write but I earned my spot by my estimation.

Once it was selected, Anna stepped up to direct. As someone who has never had someone take over something I’ve written, I’d highly recommend it. So much better to have a talented person that’s not as close to the work as you, the writer, take the helm.

Along with the incredible cast made up of Manny Simmons, Akeyla Wallace and Sue Schnitzer, Anna and co. have breathed some serious life into my 15-page script teasing out emotional beats, mining humor from throwaway lines and ad-libbing jokes that are 100x better than anything I put on paper at 5 a.m. over half a year ago.

So, if you want to see my biggest project pre-me being a dad or just hang out and see my one-act along with four others, you should definitely come to Dragonfly’s one-acts on April 1, 2 or 3. There are tickets available for all days here and it’d be swell to see you there.

• Comedy Stray Notes is a day late because I hit up my friend Steph Marc’s “Comedy Secret Show” at Easy Lover.

I’m happy to report back that this was a 10/10 experience and I would def recommend going to this banger comedy get-together over writing a newsletter on my couch any day of the week.

Hosted by the effortlessly funny Shak Standley, the 90-minute showcase had a little bit of everything. Off the top, Steph passes out edibles and champagne to audience members to get the vibe just right. Then, once they began, each comic on the stacked lineup brought the goods. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the night’s best moments: 

Shak hilariously interrogated an audience member for wearing a $56 long-sleeved Patagonia shirt, AJ Thompson told the story of history’s all-time greatest diss track, Oni Francis detailed his passion for makeup tutorials, suited-up twin duo Max Weinbach and Nicky Weinbach brilliantly impersonated Two Face, Steph Marc prat-falled all over the stage in his act that blurs the line of classic physical comedy and modern hype-man, Mary Houlihan called out the showroom’s abundance of light switches and Dan Licata closed it out with one of my new, all-time favorite jokes about edging that I won’t spoil here.

Yeah, it’s a “Secret Show” but I’m sharing the show’s ongoing Eventbrite page so everyone can be exposed to this cash money weekly. Every Sunday night, 8 p.m. Add it to your calendar and thank me later.

• One of the byproducts of online comedy classes I’ve taken these past few years is the communities that have sprouted up as a result. Sketch writing, pilot sharing and punch up groups make signing on to Zoom bearable.

Following my most recent “writing characters for sitcom” class, classmate Shenovia Large graciously volunteered to spearhead a “Pilot Analysis” meetup.

Thus far, the newfangled group has only had a pilot run meeting to discuss the “The Good Place” pilot. Basically, it was a safe space to totally nerd out on TV and talk about structure, character, the differences between screenplays and finished products, network sitcoms versus streaming shows and all things Michael Schur. Everyone had a different podcast they’d heard him on. I found my people.

This group sound like fun? Let me know and I’ll get you on the mailing list to join for future installments. No guarantee you’ll be allowed in right away since there’s a cap on how many folks can join each go-round but if you’re passionate about tv comedy, I bet you’ll be joining us before you know it.

• I grew up on a steady diet of Jerry Springer on summer afternoons. In between lunch and backyard wiffleball, I made sure to catch the sensationalist “talk show” every day. Ol’ Jerry was a bit of a hero to me.

So, I was extra surprised when I saw my friend Joey Rinaldi on Springer’s new “Judge Jerry” show arguing against his comedy partner Troy Bond about pies thrown in Joey’s face while Troy was out and about doing man on the street interviews while the two were at an Atlantic City “Mob Movie Con.”

Somehow, the duo played this ridiculous concept with completely straight faces, never breaking character and treating the “emotional distress” Joey “endured” with complete seriousness. Best of all, Springer matched them and handled the absurd case just as genuinely as they did.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was watching when I saw this mini-masterpiece. Jerry adds such an air of authority over the dumb proceedings that after a while this goofy bit transcends its silliness and passes over into comedy nirvana. If we were in a pre-internet era, this would be one of those legendary VHS’ that would get passed around by comedy nerds. Luckily, it’s 2022 and they’re only a click away.

• New York’s open mic grind can be grueling. Workshopping material in three-minute bursts and schlepping jokes from one dingy basement to the next without getting to truly show off all you can do is often a thankless and fruitless task.

That’s why city comics spreading their wings and recording 30-minute specials is so incredibly rewarding to see. Finally, everything they’ve been working can be enjoyed all at once like it’s meant to be.

James Pontillo’s “James Pontillo Does A Half Hour” fits the bill. The hard working vet cashes his proverbial comedy check in his 33.5-minute special with a lively set. After starting strong riffing on previous comics in a nice ode to those that performed on the show alongside him, James compares jokes to crack, tells the “so unbelievable it has to be true” story of the time his dad called him in class and then closes on a truly fantastic pun. 

Ol’ Pontillo’s a true joke man with legit misdirects and shock value material that actually works because there’s no malice behind it- just a love of jokes.

• Mary Martin’s “Calmedy” is my new favorite ASMR podcast. There’s not much competition which makes sense— it’s a fresh concept.

For a little over 30 minutes, Mary speaks in a relaxed, hushed tone and will riff on anything at all. In the episode I listened to, recorded right before the Super Bowl, she jokes about literal Rams and Bengals before jumping from that off-the-cuff chunk into her actual tight five. What follows is a deconstruction of the medium as Mary whispers her tried and true jokes as if they were soothing thoughts shared by a guided meditation leader.

“Calmedy” is a truly unique, short listen that demonstrates once again that comedy, particularly the podcast format, can be anything if you have just have the imagination and skills set to make your idea spring to life.

• Four (!) SNL alum released trailers for upcoming series this week. They include Season Three of Bill Hader’s increasingly serious “Barry,” Season Six of Bob Odenkirk’s increasingly action-packed “Better Call Saul” (Odenkirk wrote for the show, that counts in my book), Season One of Mike Myers’ trippy “The Pentaverate” and Season One of Vanessa Bayer’s endearingly awkward “I Love That For You” (which features rising comedy star Shannon Dee).

The two returning series (“Barry” and “Better Call Saul”) look like more of the same from each but that doesn’t bother me— both shows are stellar. That being said, “I Love That For You” appears to be a breath of fresh air that captures Bayer’s eager to please sensibility perfectly. You heard it here first- this is a show to look out for this year. I could see it becoming an “I Think You Should Leave” level hit based on tone established in the 2:40 trailer alone.

• In the past, I’ve offered managerial sessions and I’d like to offer my services once again, What are managerial sessions? That’s a great question.

Basically, the sessions are hour-long discussions between a client (could be you!) and myself (that’s me!) where we discuss anything you want. It could be an hour where you workshop jokes uninterrupted with an audience member (me again). You could discuss career goals and we could come up with a plan for you. You could have me read multiple scripts of yours and we could discuss them at length. Really it can be anything you want. Just let me know if it’s something you’re interested in and we’ll find a time to make it happen.

• Finally, I wanted to wind down and share a truly great TikTok I came across scrolling the algorithm. In 20 short seconds, martinswt highlights the differences between the oldest, middle and youngest siblings in such a scarily accurate way that I thought this person had been studying my family down to the wardrobes. 

Also, it’s only 20 seconds. Can’t go wrong with that.

• And now to steal from Jon Stewart, your weekly Moment of Zen. Check out this week’s comic from The Funnies newsletter. It’s a bit of pointed satire and made me laugh a lot. Plus, reading it will take less than 20 seconds. Not a bad ROI for looking at a thing.

^^^Created by @amandapandacomics on IG.

• Signing off for the week. Hope to see your IRL soon, m’friend

Comedy Stray Notes March 13, 2022

• Cat’s out of the bag. My wife Anna is pregnant. She’s due July 15. For the past few months, we’ve been calling our genderless baby “Pep” because on Anna’s baby-tracking app, our future child was once the size of a peppercorn. Plus, it’s fun to say “Pep.” Try saying it out loud. See? That was a good time.

It’s very exciting and a bit nerve-wracking. I mostly fear the lack of sleep more than anything else. Other than that, I’m sure parenting will be a breeze. Just a stress-free, totally chill endeavor.

I don’t want to disclose too much to protect our future baby’s privacy but I will say that they’ve already been cast in a sketch I wrote for them a while ago. So, yeah. My kid has already booked their first role months before being born. They’re already a star.

Joking aside (although the above paragraph is totally true and the sketch is going to be great), this is the coolest thing to ever happen to me. I can’t wait and will probably turn this space into “Baby Stray Notes” before you know it like any proud new parent would.

• Semi-related, I recently came across Alex Dobrenko’s poignant newsletter about his first nine months as a dad. It’s an excellent primer about the pain, heartache and joys of the first few months with baby. Dobrenko’s writing is surprisingly dark (the section about parenting being similar to “death by 1000 paper cuts” struck a chord) but also uplifting with a final wallop of a paragraph that tapped into what makes parenting so special. A great, funny, quick read.

• Other than collaborating on a baby, Anna and I are also working together on a new 20-minute play that’s running in Plainfield, New Jersey on April 1-3 as part of Dragonfly’s “weekend of one-acts” festival alongside four other very funny shorts.

Our play, “Dungeons,” was written by yours truly. Anna’s directing. It stars the incredibly talented and funny Manny Simmons, Akeyla Wallace and Susan Schnitzer.

I don’t want to give anything away but I will say that if you’re a Dungeons and Dragons player or fan, this one’s for you.

Tickets are available for $15.

If you’re free that weekend, you should totally come check out this anthology of short, funny productions. I guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself.

• Every time I jump on TikTok, I kick myself for not making more stuff. To rectify that, I just dropped a one-minute clip on the app about my new hometown Sunnyside. If you’re not familiar with the town, it’s a quirky, little, Queens city with random doctor’s offices in residential buildings and White Castle restaurants next door to apartment complexes. Basically everything you need in a neighborhood. The link is a long scroll away but worth your minute.

• To me, one of the all-time great comedic duos is Michael Margetis and Sam Lowy. Forget Kroll and Mulaney. I’m all about Margetis and Lowy. If you’re not familiar, the two Arizona improv actors have such off the charts chemistry that I’ll watch anything they do.

This week, I came across the fantastic, surreally naturalistic short “Flyboyz” they co-starred in from a few years back. Filmed on location in the Southwest and directed with a deft touch by Ben Backhaus, “Flyboyz” is a deceptively simple story of a fishin’ trip gone wrong. If you dig a little deeper than that basic synopsis, you’ll find 18-minutes of straight-faced silliness, sentimentality, shocking confessions, houseboat parties gone wrong, bizarre nudity and a lived-in authenticity that Michael and Sam bring to everything they’re in.

That’s not to mention the perfectly placed Sugar Ray and Three Six Mafia song cues.

This is a short that flew under the radar and deserves to be seen by all. It’s great, weird and laugh out loud funny.

• Matt Maran is the undisputed NYC Roastmaster General. For years, I’d attend Maran’s Comedy Fight Club and be astonished at the sheer volume of  jokes and off the cuff comebacks he’d perform with ease. As for me, I’d stiffly read my over-rehearsed five jokes from my notebook and off to the side Maran would crack comedy gold like it was nothing.

All that’s to say that Maran may have found a new niche outside of the battles he presides over: roasting Presidents. In his new web series, he takes each of the first 15 commander in chiefs to task joking about George Washington’s teeth, Thomas Jefferson’s hypocrisy, short king James Madison, the bilingual Martin Van Buren (Maran’s joke that “speaking Dutch is like speaking English with duct tape over your mouth” was so clever I called Anna into the room to hear it a second time) and 11 other long-gone leaders.

Most importantly, this video is the most effective educational video about the presidents I’ve ever seen. By roasting these 15 former heads of state, I absorbed details about them that would have gone in one ear and out the other had I just learned the facts with my short attention span in school. By roasting, Matt might have just invented a new form of learning.

Throughout the course of the video, Maran would quip, “The worse the joke is, the more I like it.” Conversely, it also helped to make them stick in my brain.

I already can’t wait for parts two and three.

• Growing up, I’d read the sports page and comics on the john every morning. Pre-smart phone, The Arizona Republic was my main source of toilet entertainment. To this day, I vividly recall my favorite strips like Pearls Before Swine and F Minus, both seared into my brain.

However, in a post-smart phone world, the simple pleasures of daily comic strips have been replaced by the social media scroll.

Thankfully, Hans Yadav saw an opportunity to revive the comic-sized hole in our lives with his new Funnies newsletter. By subscribing, you’ll get genius new comics every weekday.

I like to think of it as the perfect way to bring a part of your childhood to the modern age.

• ”The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s'' spoofing of the NFT craze has to be the tightest analysis I’ve seen of the crypto craze yet with their heist-based sketch they released earlier this week. Keep an eye out for NY comic Talib Babb’s hacker character midway through the 2.5-minute vid. His deadpan delivery takes this level-headed satire to even higher heights.

In addition to the aforementioned NFT vid, they also brought on rising comic Alex Edelman for a surprisingly long set for late night. Edelman, poised to become the next big thing, spent his seven minutes ragging on his mom for being too tough on his near-Nobel Prize winning dad and then his Israeli Olympian brother for competing in what he believes to be the “dumbest sport.” By airing his family’s dirty laundry, he’s crafted a fantastic portrait of two family members who can’t handle the accomplishments of those closest to them. It’s a great study in family dynamics while also managing to be very, very funny.

• I genuinely really liked everything I wrote about above. However, I can’t say the same about:

“Dune” (2021): I don’t get the hype. Visually spectacular images from Denis Villeneuve? Sure. Amazing cast? Yeah, definitely. Stellan Skarsgaard steals the thing as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in an odd fat suit? I can get onboard with that. Other than all of the above, this best picture contender fell completely flat for me. The Oscar love makes no sense.

For 2.5 hours, I watched what felt like a humorless parody of big-budget sci-fi. Yo, are we really still talking about spice? And why do I care about any of these characters who speak with so little enthusiasm for the material that I found myself drifting into sleep? Did it take place in the past or future? I didn’t even feel the need to Google it afterwards.

All the griping aside, a few scenes really did work. One in which a miscast, dull Timothee Chalamet experiences pain to prove his hero status was compelling. Plus, a lot of the virtual fight scenes were so well choreographed, I feel ridiculous critiquing them. I’ve never done anything .000001% as cool.

Otherwise, though, this thing is a snooze fest. The best way I can describe the movie is to say it’s like physics- I don’t understand it. My review? I SAW “DUNE.” THAT’S ALL (Available on Amazon Prime and HBOMax).

• ”SNL” with host Zoe Kravitz: “Dune” put me into such a deep sleep, I didn’t think I was going to wake up for “SNL” two hours later. That made me wonder if 77-year-old Lorne ever took a cat nap around 10:45 and decided to just call it a night instead of overseeing the show. Prob not.

Anyhow, with Anna’s help, I woke up and caught the 15th episode of Season 47. Here are my quickie baseball-based scores for this edition’s offerings.

Home runs:

Don’t Stop Believin': My favorite of the night by a country mile. Bowen absolutely jamming out to the Ohio State marching band’s rendition of the Journey classic was a jolt of pure energy to close out the episode. My only complaint? I wish they paid tribute to the host’s dad and jammed out to Lenny Kravitz.

Dad Home Movies: Perfect premise ripe for comedy. Here, a family finds their father’s “If you found this tape, I’m dead” video and watches his absurd admissions like how he lost all of his money to J.B. Smoove’s betting app with a knowing smirk. The thing is he’s alive and well though. What made this sketch particularly special for me was Kenan acting out being “fast forwarded” on video. I’m not a huge fan of his work but I couldn’t help but be mesmerized at his sped-up comic timing mimicking high speed action flawlessly here.

Porch Scene: Two bespectacled preteen friends (Kate and Aidy) discuss romance strategy over Samsung smartphones. The catch? One of them (Kate) is narrating the action while touching knees and working his way up to a kiss with the “Hillary Duff of his class” gamely played by Kravitz. This recurring sketch was a bunch of fun and a welcome return. My only complaint is one I had for quite a few sketches from this episode: no “button” to wrap this one up made it lose a bit of comic mojo.

Word Crunch: Kicking off with a non-sequitur reminder that real-life game show host Richard Dawson kissed entire families’ worth of contestants was a nice touch. The sketch itself, where competitors kept finding the word “Momhole” in a word search until it heightened into the dirtiest words allowed on network television kept getting funnier and funnier. Loved how this felt predictable until it didn’t.

Triples:

Amazon Go Stores: A well-observed bit of racial commentary about the structure of the new Bezos owned retailers. Smart, pointed and an excellent mirror pointed directly at tone-deaf corporations. A lot to like here.

Please Don’t Destroy: This week, the guys lost a cat. Then, Zoe Kravitz and Paul Dano are there. Bottles are thrown, Lego models are stepped on and chaos reigns supreme. It’s not their best work but it is frenetic and goofy enough that I can’t help but be a fan. Bonus points for the repeated Paul Rudd callbacks the guys have employed this season. It’s turning into an Easter egg that feels like it’s building into something bigger. 

Doubles:

Biden talks TikTok Cold Open: Now that the popular app is the main source of information from Ukraine to the U.S., the show smartly placed Biden amongst Gen Z’er’s yet again. This feels like an original comic lane for a somewhat comically implacable Biden to live in. He can sound out of touch calling technology “computer” while simultaneously being super plugged into specific TikTok niches. Props for Bowen Yang’s earnest speech about “the power of TikTok” to close this out that slyly undermined how dumb the app is with some cheeky camera work.

Singles:

Wedding speech: Right after the monologue is supposed to be the night’s biggest winner but this fairly predictable but modestly well-executed “maid of honor reveals awful things about the bride” was just OK at best. I bumped it up from a groundout for the brief moment where Mikey Day’s character is shoved onstage not having finished his cake and having to speak mid-bite. Relatable.

Princess and the Frog: This season, the show has fallen into a bit of a holding pattern with sexual deconstructions of Disney movies (see Kim Kardashian’s “Aladdin” sketch or Dafoe’s “Beauty and the Beast” as Exhibits A and B, your honor) and this might have been the thinnest of the bunch. Here, Chris Redd’s frog admits something something…sexual about himself that the princess should have latched onto before committing. A bit all over the place and went a beat or two too long considering how punchy the show has been of late.

Weekend Update: Out of the gate, Jost and Che wisely touched on Putin with a great bit about how his invasion may simply be a case of COVID fatigue. Somehow, the rest of this installment had a rare weightlessness quality giving way to the fluffiest jokes of the season (one about Queen Elizabeth leaving Buckingham Palace to move in with John Mayer was fun; can’t believe they didn’t go for the easy potshot and say she was moving in with Pete Davidson. Too hack?). Dropped this down to “single status” though due to the grating desk pieces. Moffatt’s film critic on LSD was tired the first time we saw it (although the crossing of his eyes was a nice piece of physical comedy) and Mooney’s deep voiced Dan the Bulldozer character had some fun ideas (“I’m writing a book like Hemingway but for guys”) but petered out after he hilariously failed to retell a fable.

Groundouts:

Zoe Kravitz monologue: This was too breezy to make any kind of impact. Cameos from generations of Catwomen, a Cat Lady and Katt Williams seemed below SNL’s standards. I did appreciate how the cast freeze framed toward the end of the monologue. Never easy to believably hold a pose.

Cut for time: 

Can I Talk To You: Usually I’m baffled why SNL cuts what they do. However, this time, I totally agree with their decision to not bring this pre-taped piece to the air. Chris Redd and Mikey Day’s gas station losers hit on Kravitz and Ego Nwodim in a short that felt so much like punching down at these hapless sad sacks that it was hard to laugh. Yes, there were funny moments (Day’s character having a tail and Redd’s car inexplicably catching on fire) but not enough to justify  mean-spirited, classist commentary. Had Redd and Day’s characters been finance bros this would have been a different story.

• Finally, I’d like to recommend the 40-minute “On Writing” podcast with “Only Murders In The Building” writer John Hoffman. For fans of the show, you can marvel at the shocking fact that this effortlessly funny and smart show was written over Zoom (!) during the pandemic. Other impressive revelations include the fact that Steve Martin improvised one of the show’s most pivotal lines and the staff didn’t know who the murderer was going to be at the beginning of the season. You gotta be kidding me.

That’s not to mention all the helpful writing tips Hoffman shares.

Pop this puppy in and you’ll be shocked by the time it’s over.

• That’s all she wrote for me, folks. 

Gonna get some sleep now while I still can

Comedy Stray Notes March 6, 2022

• Last Sunday, I tuned into former SNL and Mad TV writer Rich Talarico’s “Sketchy Q and A” with the Sketchy School. The conversation began with Talarico’s origin story. In the early ‘00s, he was hired by SNL as a writer, turned it down so he could act at Second City and then opted to go back into writing sketch comedy, accepting a job at Mad TV instead (and eventually SNL).

I appreciated Talarico’s improv strategy (the first person should enter with “scene object work” while the next person builds on it) and thoughts on failure (good writers “bat .300.” You just have to write a lot so that you have enough good stuff that’s in that .300).

The most quintessential piece of advice he shared though may have been his simplest. In regards to comedy writing, Talarico preached, “Live life as a normal participant and find things that annoy you.”

That’s exactly it. If you do so, your comedy will come from a real place that will resonate with others.

• On Monday evening, Anna and I stayed in and watched a Q and A with Bob Odenkirk from our couch.

Moderated by Rolling Stone’s Alan Sepinwall, Odenkirk spilled details from his forthcoming memoir “Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama” about meeting Del Close by chance in the early ‘80s, trashing SNL when he interviewed for a staff writing position with Lorne Michaels (“I bet that guy gets his ass kissed a lot” was his rationale), his time on “The Ben Stiller Show” and “Mr. Show” in the ‘90s and then later his experiences in the “Breaking Bad” cinematic universe.

The event was essentially an unbroken monologue as Odenkirk effortlessly shared seemingly off the cuff aphorisms like, “if you’re damaged, might as well make some coin from it” (I’m really paraphrasing here) and anecdotes about how he was cut from “Waiting For Guffman.” He even ran a bit where he had audience members ask canned pre-written questions he’d clearly prepared.

All of that is to say, I may have been feeling cynical that night but the recurring theme of the evening seemed to be that Odenkirk failed upwards quite a bit. Others seemed to see great things in him even when he wasn’t necessarily ready for opportunities (like SNL), but he had the right attitude and that took him to the next level.

That being said, Odenkirk is undeniably very talented. I hung on to his every word for over an hour and was moved at the end when he went into painstaking detail about the events that transpired when he had a heart attack on the set of “Better Call Saul.” He was saved by his fitness regimen from his time training for “Nobody.”

Movies really can save your life.

• ”White Lotus” (2021): Mike White’s hit HBO six-episode series (just picked up for a second season) is the show I’d always dreamed of making about the American family vacation but didn’t have the talent or chutzpah to put together.

Featuring a sprawling ensemble cast made up of the best character actors of today like Jennifer Coolidge, Steve Zahn, Jake Lacy, Alexandra Daddario, Connie Britton, Murray Bartlett, Sydney Sweeney, Jon Gries, Molly Shannon, Natasha Rothwell and a score of others, the show expertly mixes drama, suspense, social satire and dark humor to create an essential commentary on class and race in our modern day.

Set at a tropical resort in Hawaii, we first meet Shane (Lacy) skulking alone at the airport at the show’s end in a bit of foreshadowing to begin the series. A body bag is being lifted onto the plane he’s about to take and he lashes out at fellow tourists whom he tells to mind their own business when they ask probing questions about his experience at The White Lotus.

Then, we cut to the beginning of the series. Lacy is a newlywed; Coolidge, a grieving daughter who came to spread her mother’s ashes and Britton and Zahn, the upper class heads of a two-child home along with a friend their daughter brought for the week.

Once they arrive at the resort, they’re greeted by a staff that’s instructed to “be present and anticipate the guest’s needs before they even know what they want.” Guests and employees intertwine lives and White continually plays with audience expectations. He makes the wealthy characters obnoxiously self-centered but the kind “invisible help” aren’t behaved all that much better.

At times, it may seem like not all that much is happening in the series but that’s part of the series’ allure mimicking the real life rhythms of time spent in overly nice hotels.

TV keeps getting better and better.

“Nightmare Alley” (2021): There’s a fantastic con-man movie hiding in this Oscar-nominated film. However, as a whole, “Nightmare Alley” simply isn’t it.

This early 1940s throwback directed by horror auteur Guillermo Del Toro starts promisingly with stark, surreal imagery of its star Bradley Cooper in a burning home that he appears to have set on fire. Soon after, the quiet Cooper finds himself working at a carnival alongside ringleader Willem Dafoe, strongman Ron Perlman and femme fatale Rooney Mara. There’s a caged “Geek” that’s tricked into his role with opium tincture laced into his drinks. Toni Collette and David Strathairn teach Cooper tarot card tricks.

At this point, the movie is a blast; a peek behind the carnie curtain if you will. Sure, some of the imagery is far too graphic and disturbing for a mainstream release but the behind the scenes look at how psychics trick regular folk into believing and how stunts like the electric chair are endlessly compelling.

It’s once we leave this carnival setting so Cooper and Mara can try their own two-person act on the road with Cate Blanchett does the film slow down to such a snail’s pace that I could barely stay awake for the remainder of its sluggish 2.5-hour run time.

All of the dynamism and visual skill that Del Toro has been gifted with go out the window as the movie essentially turns into a filmed podcast as Cooper and Blanchett plot how to trick local politicians into believing he can speak with their dead family members for large sums of money.

An Oscar nomination here is unearned Del Toro fan service more than anything else. I love the guy but this is no “Shape of Water” (Streaming on Hulu).

SNL with Oscar Isaac: A week after a reliably solid outing hosted by John Mulaney, the long-running variety show opted to shake things up this week and go in an odder, more aggressively experimental direction than they have all season.

Hell yeah.

As someone who loves to see SNL futz with the form, I thought this episode did some really fun stuff. Here’s my baseball (fingers crossed we get MLB action this season) rankings of this week’s sketches.

Home runs

Meatball: FINALLY, we get to see Sarah Sherman let her freak flag fly. Deceptively starting as a traditional date night sketch until Sherman unveils an Oompa-Loompa-like “singing meatball” under a green ribbon, this weirdo four-minute pretaped piece keeps heightening in ways that are so left field that you can’t but sit back and admire that this was on network television. Plus, the song the meatballs sing is too catchy for its own good.

Triples

Cold Open: This smart (if toothless) piece of political satire centers around Fox News “raising money for the oligarchs.” Trump (James Austin Johnson) takes calls in the background speaking in non-sequitur tangents centering around everything from his support from “the whales” to his love of “burger.” Bowen Yang is there as Steven Seagal, Mikey Day and Cecily sing “Shallow.” It’s a bit overstuffed but Trump telling Putin “You is smart, you is kind, you is important” was so silly and spot-on that it redeemed the sketch for me.

Oscar Isaac monologue: Issac’s charming homage to an homemade action movie he made at ten complete with a running commentary is hard to hate on. The capper that his friend’s dad cleaning the pool in the background had no idea he was going to show up on SNL this week was the perfect cherry on top.

Fiction workshop: Every so often, Anna will ask what I think the “game of the sketch” will be when the players are working out the premise. This time around, when Isaac’s janitor character enters a creative writer’s group, I guessed the story he’d bring to the table would either be “extraordinary” or “really bad.” I was wrong. Anna correctly guessed “dirty.” Isaac’s gloriously odd ode to Dua Lipa that followed shortly after was so perfectly creepy and amateurish that it was impossible not to laugh at.

Workplace harassment: Cecily Strong has a gift for committing to insane logic. This time around, she and Isaac play HR representatives giving increasingly unhinged examples of poor workplace behavior that no one engages in except for themselves and maybe Kenan’s mischievous Kevin character. When the cast nearly breaks at the sketch’s halfway mark, it’s one of the episode’s best moments.

Doubles

Paw Patrol: The breakdown of the kid’s show “Paw Patrol” is a fun concept similar to last week’s “Monkey Judge” where SNL breaks down how nuts it is that animals have real human jobs. Coming from the perspective of a concerned city councilman and citizens is a nice touch but after a while, the smart concept runs its course.

Weekend Update: A lot of home run jokes here (“Ron DeSantis seen here learning someone’s pronouns” and “Tuesday was National Pig Day and when I told that to a pig, he handcuffed me” were unforgettable) and a few so-so desk pieces from McKinnon and Nwodim places this perfectly in the double range.

Singles

Home repair show: Notable for being Kenan’s 1500th sketch appearance, this talk show where Kenan’s host character interviews overzealous home decorators had the vibe of a bloated early ‘90s sketch until his wife (Ego Nwodim) jumps in at the end and rightly puts him in his place with the cutting comment that “his own home is falling apart.” If this beat made up the bones of “home repair show” it would have been a banger.

Aidy’s Dream: The off-kilter pre-taped opening where Aidy brags about her exploits on the show with attractive hosts is paid off when we cut to a live sketch featuring an invented on-the-spot, fake, over-sexualized recurring character. It’s a fun, fourth-wall breaking commentary on Aidy’s tenure but doesn't offer much in the way of surprise once we get the bit that this is “Aidy’s dream.”

Inventing Chloe: Similar to “Aidy’s Dream,” “Inventing Chloe” is a forced, imagining of what would happen if Chloe Fineman started acting like Anna Delvey around 30 Rock. Something about this sketch felt too on the nose but it was certainly redeemed by Fineman’s character tossing a MetroCard like it was a Mastercard at an NBC page (sidenote: the page had a ton of lines but isn’t a cast member. Baffling).

Cut for time

Inflatable toilet: This title is about as self-explanatory as it gets. McKinnon and Isaac throw a house party and to make up for a lack of toilets, blow up a few for their guests. Clever visual gags (an inflatable People Magazine got me) and a surprising yet inevitable conclusion make this another confusing entry in the cut for time canon. “Inflatable toilet” is more than worthy of airtime.

That’s that.

Comedy Stray Notes February 27, 2022

• Sometimes, lost projects you thought didn’t exist online have been sitting there all along. Por ejemplo, for years, I thought Mike Myers’ and Jack Handey’s “Dieter” screenplay based on Myers’ off-putting but endearing German talk show host was one of those comedy urban legends you’d seldom hear about, hope you’d read someday and then forget about.

Then, I found a PDF in a Twitter thread last week.

It exists!

I opened the screenplay and what I found was a twisted flick that would have fit in the mold of late ‘90s/early ‘00s studio comedies like “Zoolander” and “Superstar.” Just unabashedly silly, raunchy and roles specifically written for a young Will Ferrell and Jack Black (they were respectively set to play Dieter’s all-American, hot-tempered cousin and an obsessively monkey private investigator). Most of all, it’s full of belly laughs.

Structured a bit like “Borat,” the eponymous Dieter travels from Germany to find his kidnapped monkey sidekick Klaus in Hollywood, California, U.S.A. It’s your classic fish out of water tale, the only difference being the lead isn’t naive or charming like a Borat or Austin Powers- Dieter is unfailingly nihilistic, dark and kinky in unsettling ways.

This, folks, is probably why this lost classic wasn’t made.

Mike Myers famously vetoed this movie from being released and I understand why. It’s very funny but “Dieter” is not exactly your typical blockbuster comedy fare. I think this might have been 12-year-old me’s favorite movie but I could see this breaking Myers’ “Austin Powers’” hot streak that he was riding from ‘97-’03. 

Anyway, forget all that. Let’s get to the fun and explore the screenplay itself.

Myers and Handey maintain a “Simpsons” like tone and pace lampooning fallen stars of yesteryear like David Hasslehoff and Dick Van Patten (had to do some research to find out who DVP was) and craft A+ absurd bits that still hold up to this day. I loved a scene toward the end where Dieter is given dog biscuits to throw at guard dogs while escaping a prison and then opts to eats them in the moment he needs them most. Perfect misdirect.

Another moment where Dieter’s monkey, Klaus, slaps Dieter with a tinier monkey paw made me LOL.

There are bawdy jokes on par with “Austin Powers” up until the final frame. It’s probably for the best this movie wasn’t made, but boy, I wish it was.

• Empowered after discovering “Dieter” online, I searched for “My Best Friend’s Birthday,” on YouTube. For those not in the know, “MBFB” is the unfinished Quentin Tarantino feature from the late ‘80s. 

You wouldn’t believe it, but it’s ALSO online. 

Well, 36 minutes of it as seen here.

In the abbreviated available section of the film, Tarantino’s passionate disc jockey character (yes, played by Tarantino) who claims that he was a suicidal three-year-old until he saw “The Partridge Family,” is on a mission to make his “Best Friend’s Birthday” a smashing success. He even hires a lady of the night for him and then (spoiler) ends up with her himself.

What makes this fraction of a film so fascinating is not the plotting but Tarantino’s skills on display in such a nascent stage of his filmmaking development. Sure, his friends that he cast trying to deliver his trademark dialogue are awful but he’s electric defending Elvis, relaying a heartfelt message to a baker to inscribe on a birthday cake and admitting to his foot fetish (yup, really).

For big fans of the auteur, you’ll find Easter eggs like references to an Aldo Ray and characters named Yolanda and Clarence, which reoccur in the Tarantino Cinematic Universe. The biggest find of all though is the impeccable soundtrack. I’ve been listening to “Right Now” by the Creatures all week.

The internet has it all.

• For years, (well, 2016-18), I ran a birthday-themed show in Long Island City called It’s Everybody’s Birthday where the theme of every show was that “as soon as you walked through the door, it was your birthday.” Didn’t matter if you were a performer or an audience member, you were celebrating.

We had good times.

This week, I went to my good friend Matt Vita’s birthday show at Young Ethel’s on Twosday (02/22/22 if you forgot already) and it easily outpaced any birthday show of mine in terms of fun.

Kicking off with artist host Alice Michelle who painted all the performers on a mirror, the birthday celebration had the perfect variety show party vibe that I always dreamed about for my show. There were fire comics like David Rey Martinez, Mike Toohey, Matt Wayne, Brent Birnbaum and Will Purpura as well as a mini-play from married couple Tim and Mary, musical odes to Matt from Dave Deciglie, Heather Harrison and Nikki MaCallum, an anti-comedy set from yours truly where I outlined all the things I did the prior week instead of write jokes and finally a Reggie Watts-like freestyle from Vita himself summarizing the show.

Forget parties. This is how you celebrate a birthday.

• Anna Paone and I moved to Sunnyside in October yet I still hadn’t made the pilgrimage to Astoria’s Grove 34 in the four months since we’d gotten settled in. This week, that all changed when I headed over to their Monday evening mic and found a venue that reminded me of the best of Long Island City’s dearly departed Creek and the Cave with its warm, comedy-first environment.

If you haven’t swung by, the showroom is on full display as soon as you walk in- this place is a comedy club and nothing else. Chairs encircle a raised wooden stage and microphone- there are no distractions, just pure stand up. 

The mic is free for three minutes; buying a drink gets you an extra 60 seconds. I heard a handful of great, short sets in the hour or so I was there and can’t wait to hear more in the near future.

Plus, no joke, their bathroom has legit hotel-level hand towels instead of paper towels. Now, that’s class.

• Due to some kind of divine coincidence, I attended two one-man shows on Friday and Saturday that were a) both performed by a man named Matt, b) took place on St. Mark’s at c) 10:30 p.m., d) both about spirituality and somehow ended up being wholly different.

Let’s go to Friday night first.

Matt Storrs’ 50-minute “Portly Lutheran Know It All,” playing in New York’s Frigid Festival outlined and examined Storrs’ love/hate relationship with his faith.

Entering onstage with a backpack, Extreme Teen Bible and a cheery disposition, Matt launched into a story about how he wanted to be a “purple witch” for Halloween as a kid. This led to humorous yarns detailing his religious and sexual awakening including one TV-ready bit where he portrayed his young self auditioning for mock trial as a Southern attorney defending Judas.

That great joke barely beat out numerous references to McDonalds’ Grimace, a refresher on “101 ways to practice abstinence,” a breakdown of all the “different ways a Lutheran person can be polite,” Bible comparisons to Dragonball Z, spin the bottle awkwardness and a tutorial on the “Song of Solomon” for us uninitiated non-Bible reading folk as my favorite chunk of the night.

While it may seem like I’ve given away the lion’s share of Matt’s show, I haven’t even scratched the surface of how much heart and story “Portly Lutheran Know It All” has. It’s a gem.

There’s one performance left on March 3. You should make it a priority if you haven’t seen it yet.

Now, to Saturday evening.

Headed back to the Lower East Side on Saturday evening for Matt Ruby’s “Misguided Meditation” show at Yoga To The People.

I’ve never met Ruby in person before but I’m a longtime reader of his thought-provoking and hysterical weekly newsletter.

If you’re not familiar with Ruby’s engaging writing, this recurring event/experience of his is an excellent primer.

The show began by having audience members grab a drink from an open bar, find a yoga mat and take a seat. Yes, the show takes place in a yoga studio. No, you don’t have to do yoga.

Ruby’s “Misguided Meditation,” which he compared to ballet as opposed to the typical “tap dance” comedians do at clubs, got underway with him telling everyone to take out their phones and send a nice text to a friend or family member so we’d all have something nice to come back to when the show concluded.

Then, for a little over an hour, a group of strangers listened to Ruby’s seemingly organic material over dreamlike live guitar and a stirring light show projected onto the ceiling. 

A few minutes into the set, the show took on a dreamlike quality as inspired taken on men versus women transformed into experiences where the audience wasn’t watching a comedian’s mouth move- we were watching a guitarist or trippy patterns of light like one would at a concert.

At times “Misguided Meditation” was riotously funny with smart, extended riffs on the Proud Boys and at other times profoundly sad as he told stories about deaths in his family. Heck, we even meditated.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been to hundreds of comedy shows but I’ve never quite seen anything like this before. Add this to your New York bucket list.

• And now for a few great pieces of web content at your fingertips.

- Robby Hoffman’s tight, hour long “I’m Nervous” special is a perfect showcase for her as the rightful heir to Larry David’s neurotic throne.  Over the course of the set, she hilariously diagnoses people with “Zero personality disorder” and astutely called the Holocaust wildly unproductive- the Nazis really did create the least able-bodied workers they could have. Smart take. You often hear in stand up “All killer, no filler” and this set is emblematic of that moniker. I’m still chuckling over her chunk on what it was like growing up as a seventh child.

- Former Sunday night Knitting Factory host Kenny DeForest’s 13-minute Comedy Central showcase is a master class in naturalistic stand up. His punchlines are undeniable and smartly constructed but Kenny also somehow manages to give his jokes a weightless feel similar to someone simply being funny at lunch with friends. Covering ground like mis-placed aggression post-basketball career and getting heckled by your therapist, Kenny masterfully wrestles with masculinity and the lingering effects of middle school bullies. Also, don’t sleep on his sly critique of New York he opens with. It’s what hooked me to begin with here.

- Eric Neumann’s tight five “Tonight Show” set is a solid introduction to the versatile comedian’s tool belt. Although he’s got a gift for crowd work, here, Eric calmly lets well-honed bits about his overprotective mom and how getting dumped in fifth grade affected him take center stage. The piece de resistance though is the closer where he turns an observation from a friend about how LeBron married his high school sweetheart into an extended rant about how she didn’t just “roll the dice on the guy that was on the cover of Sports Illustrated in his teens.” Well done. Now, that’s how you do a late night spot.

- Comedy Central is quietly debuting truly top notch comedy specials on their YouTube channel that deserve all the attention that Premium Blend sets used to attract before the internet cracked open how we consume comedy. Thankfully, Ian Lara’s superb 30-minute “Growing Shame” special is netting the attention it deserves. Right off the bat, Ian’s timely half hour skewers anti-vaxxers who think the government is tracking us and then smartly deconstructs the argument that “the government created the virus” rebutting with a solution to get people vaccinated that’s so smart, I won’t spoil it here. I also won’t give away his excellent bit about being a stockholder. Or how an ex of his dated Odell Beckham Jr. Or so many other bits. There’s a lot of good stuff here and I refuse to give it away. You’re going to have to see it yourself.

- And now for something completely different. Staged like a cinema verite documentary, Dan Carney’s 40-second “Target bag salesman” where he treats the retailers’ bags like they’re precious purses selling “Two for $35” is so fast, confoundingly funny and different, that you’ll want to watch it twice to catch everything you missed on the first time around. At the very least, stick around until the very end for a true wtf moment that appears to have been off the cuff.

• Ah, yes, this week, “Saturday Night Live” celebrated ye olde, annual Mulaney episode. Since 2018, it’s become a bit of a tradition that the former writer/”Big Mouth” creator-star/”Sack Bunch Lunch” creator-star/”Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers” star host the show.

This time around, he brought along indie-dance stalwarts LCD Soundsystem for their second musical guest appearance.

By my estimation, here’s how the sketches fared (using a “home runs to strikeouts” scale because baseball is the only thing I understand):

Grand slams:

Five Timers Club: You thought a bona fide SNL nerd wouldn’t give the freaking Five Timers Club the vaunted grand slam spot? This ultimate fan service featuring Steve Martin, Paul Rudd, Candice Bergen, Tina Fey, a seated Elliott Gould and (a possibly slightly inebriated) Conan inducting Mulaney into the club (Mulaney on how he became well known to Bergen: “You wouldn’t know me but if you have a niece or son who’s bad at sports you might know me”)  is everything fans of the show’s history long for each episode. It should also be noted that I think this sketch might have invented a new type of comedy when Mulaney whisked Paul Rudd off the stage by reading the stage direction “Paul Rudd exits.”

Home runs:

Good Variant: We keep hearing about Delta, Omicron, BA.2 but thankfully a “good variant” called Gelvenie that “makes you feel dope” is on the way according to Please Don’t Destroy. Paul Rudd and Al Roker show up with long hair and bliss out until they discover that Pokemon are real and have stormed the Capitol. Misdirect after misdirect at a wreckless pace makes this an easy four-bagger (home run) for me.

Subway Churro: Each Mulaney episode, we get a musical sketch dating back to his now immortal “Lobster Diner.” This time, it’s Andrew Dismukes’ desire for a subway churro after turning down an O. Henry bar that inspires the whole cast to break out into song and dance. Well-realized (and possibly offensive) observations about the city like B&H’s staff on lunch break, an emotional “Sleep No More” performer and a train conductor (on what seemed like a replica of a train no less) who announced that they will “skip random stations when they felt like it” all rang true. For sheer grandiosity, balls to the wall creativity and pure fun, it’s hard to beat these once-a-season mini spectacles.

Triples:

Cupid Shuffle: Can’t get enough of Mulaney’s uber white characters’ seemingly effortless familiarity with his Black wife’s (Ego Nwodim) family at their reunion making him more comfortable with them than she is. Still laughing thinking of Mulaney perfectly in step with the “Atlanta Two Piece and a Biscuit” remix.

Doubles:

Mulaney’s monologue: At first, it seemed that this would consist of slightly catty material about his rehabilitation (although an early dig at the show pointing out that it’s not the greatest environment for recovering drug addicts or mental health was a nice touch) and how Hollywood elites Zoomed into his intervention but then Mulaney zagged where I expected him to zig. A story about how he blocked a drug dealer’s phone number goes much deeper than any monologue (stand up or not) deserves. He closed with thoughts on his newfound fatherhood and an early sign that his newborn is really his. Great stuff all around but this episode had so much going for it, I’m grading on a curve.

Monkey Judge: A subtle tribute (in my mind at least) to Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, Monkey Judge quickly tells the audience the sketch’s premise, heightens nicely where both the defense and prosecution do everything they can appeal to the primate’s sensibilities like bribing with cake and ragdolls. An especially inspired moment found Cecily Strong employing baby talk to Mulaney’s judge saying, “Attorney love judge” to win him over. Pure lunacy played with a straight face.

COVID Dinner Discussion: What begins as a dinner outing where Kenan “forgets” he’s wearing his mask at the table devolves into chaos as each member of the party walks on eggshells as they speak their piece on how “COVID is over but not over.” Kind of a ballsy, semi-irresponsible sketch. However, it’s redeemed by wicked sight gags like a tie rolling up and a mini-elevator closing on Kate McKinnon’s face (you have to see it to believe it) along with a hilarious exchange where Bowen Yang repeatedly interrupts Heidi Gardner’s character to let her know that “No one wants to hear that” right as she’s about to explain an article she read online. Somehow, even the “I like turtles” meme kid popped up at one point. I will say that, annoyingly, they didn’t acknowledge that the SNL cast never wears masks except for good nights which they totally should have called out (and even did this episode for those keeping score at home).

Weekend Update: Short and sweet. Forgoing desk correspondents for the first time in forever, Jost and Che made timely jokes about “Putin making the invasion of Ukraine happen with the help of Belarus and Tucker Carlson.” They boldly slammed NBC and Peacock multiple times, biting the hand that feeds and stayed sharp. Loved a dig at Trump calling Putin a genius. Overall, good, old fashioned, meat and potatoes Update here. Nothing too flashy or memorable which is why I give it a double rather than the higher score it would normally notch.

Singles:

Behind The Slime: Half of this sketch based in the early 80s really worked for me and the other half did very little. The half that I jived with was all the uncomfortable small talk the TV show kids engaged in prior to getting slimed. Confrontational, inappropriate and completely normal for 1980. On the flip side, the actual slimings were so predictable that I couldn’t find much to laugh at. You call a sketch “Behind the Slime” and you know what you’re going to get. That being said, Mulaney introducing LCD Soundsystem in character, fully-slimed, was a radical touch. 

Intentional walks: 

Cold open: The show opened with a somber tribute to the tragic war being waged overseas right now. Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon introduced a Ukrainian choir and they sang “A Prayer For Ukraine.” Then, out of obligation, Strong said, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.” Come on, guys, we didn’t need that. Just let the choir do their thing.

Ground outs:

Blue River: Cecily Strong argues that “by spending an extra 32 cents a day” Heidi Gardner’s character can give her dog much higher quality dog food. Only problem is that Strong clearly hasn’t done the math and is way off. Strong’s singular obsession with dog food here is nice as is what felt like a cameo from Mulaney as her virgin husband; my issue is that the saccharine sentimentality and lethargic pacing turned me off. If they shaved “just 32 seconds” off this puppy, I’d bump it to “single” or “double” territory.

Cut for time sketches: 

- The “Podcast toy set” for ages 34 and up is a brilliant send up of how no one should really be broadcasting their thoughts out into the world. This cautionary tale wrapped up in funny commercial packaging smartly puts Mulaney’s “recently fired from the office” character in his basement pretending to podcast with an inflatable co-host until his wife walks in on him and things take a turn. A touch preachy but the LPM (laughs per minute) is so high, I’ll forgive it.

- In terms of pure laughs, you can’t do much better than “Family Band.” Heidi Gardner brings classically put upon Mikey Day home to meet her family which turns out to be a “swing revival revival band.” Yes, you read that right. Double revival. These gents are obsessed with big ol’ bottles of gin and 1999. Everyone commits hardcore here and that’s what counts.

• In related SNL news, Laraine Newman appeared on last week’s “Fly on the Wall” with Dana Carvey and David Spade. In addition to the classic SNL stories the show has become known for, Carvey and Newman somehow latched onto wild Mickey Rooney anecdotes that have to be heard to be believed. The cherubic, former “biggest star in the world” fella wasn’t a great person but that doesn’t mean tales about him aren’t wildly entertaining.

• Also, this flew a bit under the comedy radar this week but Eric Adams surprised Chris Redd on New York local news this week a la Barbara Streisand stopping by the set of Mike Myers’ “Coffee Talk” in the ‘90s and on and on. The major takeaway here? Redd can roll with the punches and Adams is wilder and stranger than Redd’s impression.

• Closing this week on a sad note.

Bob McDuff AKA the professor who wanted to try Tim Robinson’s burger on “I Think You Should Leave” passed away this week. That was my favorite sketch the show ever produced and its mostly thanks to his inspired, greedy performance.

If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check out Bob in the sketch here. You’ll thank me later.

Comedy Stray Notes February 20, 2022

• Everyone has a dream project they never made.

For some, it exists as a PDF on a desktop, for others, it’s just an idea that exists in your head.

For me, it was a feature film about my first week of college called “Shark Jumpers: The Movie Based on the Story of the Short-Lived College Sketch Show.” I had a screenplay, trailer, website, the whole nines. The dream of dreams was to get all of the materials to Keegan-Michael Key to direct because a) there’s no one else as passionate about sketch and b) I always thought he’d want to compete with Peele in the filmmaking game.

Thing is, no one wants to read a 105-page screenplay though. It’s homework.

So, after a year of waiting and trying to move this project forward, I remembered I had a recording of a reading of the podcast I did on Zoom over the pandemic. It wasn’t quite the finished draft of the screenplay but the actors (CW Headley, Gayle Bass, Tom Scudamore, Matt Vita, Anna Paone, Will Purpura, Christie Bahna, Jeremyah Schur, Sam Zelitch, Justine D’Souza, Dan Wickes, Arthur Pugh, Shannon Dee and Justin Bulver) were all very funny and hit the emotional beats with ease.

So, I thought rather than waiting around forever, I’d adapt the reading into a podcast so the project could exist in some capacity rather than just in my head.

I spent a good three weeks editing the dialogue, adding sound effects, a score and soundtrack. If I couldn’t see the movie I always dreamed of, I’d at least make the one I want to hear.

When all was said and done, I named the podcast, “Untitled Dream Projects.” It came out to around 65 minutes and is a pretty damn good compromise. It’s not exactly the original vision I had nor is Key attached but it exists in a way that I am proud of.

I bet you’d like it. Give it a try.

• Before work, I like to send out a tweet into the world and ride the social media dopamine hit throughout the day. This week, I wrote the half baked, “Always love this part of the pandemic where it slows down for like two months before it ramps back up.” 

The thought had been rattling around in my head for awhile and I figured I might as well share.

It quickly racked up likes. There’s a certain speed a tweet’s popularity reaches where you know it has some degree of virality. If you get to 50 likes really fast, there’s a snowball effect that typically means it will be seen by a wider audience. 50 turns into 150, 150 turns into 300. That’s a typical plateau.

Sometimes though, they just keep growing. This one did. Every time I looked at my phone, it had jumped 5K likes. For three days, it wouldn’t stop and finally peaked at 256K. Truth be told and as annoying as it may sound, this becomes more annoying than fun. People fight in the comments. Others poke holes in your writing. It becomes a whole to-do.

All that being said, there were some fun, new highs this time around though. Rather than grossly promoting this newsletter as I typically do, I switched it up and grossly promoted the podcast that I grossly promoted above. 

I never thought that anyone posting a link to a podcast on Twitter would do any kind of numbers but it did lead to 44 people listening to “Unmade Dream Projects.” So, that was cool.

Also, I finally had one of those companies that sell lamps and light kits that are under every viral tweet reach out to me. They told me if I posted three links, they’d send me $20. I don’t know if that’s a standard amount or not but I figured, “Why not?” and did it. They sent the money right away and even threw me an extra $5.

Not bad for a half baked thought.

• The day the tweet went stupid viral, I went to a QED mic in the evening. First time going up in two months.

On the way there, I had planned on writing a few jokes to try out. Like an idiot, I spent the whole ride enjoying being continually bombarded by twitter notifications.

When I arrived, I put my name in the bucket and hoped that I would get called in the third or fourth group so I could settle in and write some material by candlelight. 

Of course, I was called first. The nightmare scenario. A total lack of preparedness mixed with one of the best spots at a mic (although going first is technically “the bullet spot” it’s not bad at a mic just because you can get in and out) hit the anxiety Venn Diagram in the bullseye.

So, I just went up and talked about going viral. How my boss saw the tweet and thought it was dumb. How I spent a long time trying to come up with a promotional tweet to go under the actual viral tweet. How I didn’t even want to be onstage and would rather have been looking at the tweet’s stats itself.

As self-indulgent as all this sounds, it went over surprisingly well. I don’t know if this was just a good mic or the material actually worked but there were genuine laughs. 

OK, I swear that’s the last you’ll hear about that tweet here.

• This was yet another great week for superb internet content. Here’s a small sampling of the web’s most exceptional offerings:

- I’ll admit that my writing in this newsletter is a tiny bit spineless. I only write about things I like. I rarely if ever include negative reviews or thoughts in order to keep things light but I do wish I had the chutzpah to tear someone’s project to pieces. You know, like Roger Ebert at his best.

Even if I did do it, I wouldn’t be 10% as good as Michael Margetis, the man behind the excellent Margetis Movie Reviews which he affectionately refers to as “just one, fat smelly opinion.”

While I love to read his juicy takedowns, my favorite thing Margetis puts out is his annual “Ten Worst Movies of the Year '' where he trashes the most wretched films with eloquence and humor. 

For 2021’s edition, he did not disappoint, dunking on “Home Sweet Home Alone,” “Nightmare Alley” and many more. My favorite excerpt came from his review of the seventh worst movie of the year (by his estimation) “Fear Street.” He wrote:

“It makes no sense to me, but I guess if you’re a dumb adult my age with a borderline unhealthy nostalgia habit for the 90s, you’ll enjoy the painfully unclever needle drops and one-dimensional teenagers.”

Perfection.

Margetis does the homework for us and writes about the movies we saw or missed in a way that’s often more entertaining than the flicks themselves. There just might be a new Ebert in town.

- There’s no one in comedy closer in to approaching the wit, whimsy and wonder of the legendary Jack Handey than Joe Rumrill. I’ve long been an admirer of his stand up and was ecstatic when I heard that Audible had picked up a ten-episode series written by Joe called “Lem Can Help” starring Fred Armisen as the titular Lem on advice podcast.

Over the course of this week, I devoured all ten 15-minute episodes in quick succession laughing heartily as Armisen doled out priceless bits of advice like, “the perfect five-year anniversary gift is confetti. Year six should be something with clay,” “There needs to be an Uncle’s holiday that revolves around a lunch that takes place from 11:30-1” and “It’s not littering if you put the trash on a surface high up” but what I loved best of all was his conversation with a “post-sitcom credits animation artist” played by Maria Bamford in the final episode.

In it, she explains that her turtle falling on its back isn’t supposed to be fun— it was a meditation on death. I snorted when I heard that line. She had crossed over from the light tone Lem had established with guests in previous episodes like Reggie Watts, Tim Heidecker, Vanessa Bayer, Patti Harrison, Meg Stalter, Beck Bennett and Drew Tarver into something primal and dark. A truly surprising left-field turn.

Other highlights include Bayer’s character who is so proud of her packing skills that she puts a water bottle in her suitcase just so the TSA has to see how neatly she folded her clothes and recurring character quirks from Armisen. Each episode he had an excuse for why he needed to leave early that day and found a fresh way to complain about the music that closed the episode each time around. It’s like if Ira Glass was slightly more complain-y.

Overall, this is a perfect distillation of Rumrill’s madcap, lo-fi sensibility and hope this is far from the last we see of Lem. 

• On Wednesday evening, after I performed at the QED mic, I slummed it in Astoria for the rest of the evening waiting to catch the “Late Night Writers Workshop” show advertised on their outdoor marquee.

The show was a gas. Put on by former “Trump Comedy Nerd” twitter account creator Matt Koff and warmly hosted by Lauren Hope Krass who pitched it as an “open mic for famous people,” they delivered seven seasoned, staffed comics. Each brought inspired, new material to the stage demonstrating why they write for the funniest shows on the air like “Full Frontal with Sam Bee” and “The Daily Show.”

Honestly, this is the reason I moved to New York- to see the best of the best work out on a random Wednesday for shekels.

For a brief moment, New York felt like the New York of old.

- Every so often, I stumble upon a fantastic sketch on the ‘Gram. “Book Heckler” starring the magnetic Glo Tavarez, which I caught this week, is another installment in that storied tradition of fantastic content I caught thanks to the algorithm knowing what I like before I do.

In the four-minute clip, Tavarez plays an agent who shows up at a book reading and does everything in her power to convince the author to adapt his soulful sci-fi novel into a movie with Pitbull on the soundtrack. Commentary on the soulless nature of the entertainment industry’s pump and dump relationship with literature abounds. 

Relatable, silly, smart and goofy all at once. This is the total package.

- For months, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops that Brent Forrester’s comedy classes are the best writing funny resource I’ve ever come across. Having just completed his class a second time, I am happy to report that my claim holds true.

This time around, in five weeks, he preached the secrets of sitcom writing that separate the bad scripts from the good scripts from the ones that get people staffed. 

Without giving away too many of the ingredients that make up his secret sauce, my main takeaways from the class were 1) stories are about two people and 2) characters need “core comic contradictions.” Don’t know what that means? Think Michael Scott. He tries to appear worldly but ends up showing off how much of a buffoon he really is. That’s it. The difference between who the characters think they are versus who they really are.

Honestly, kind of a little sad that all of the great comic characters are delusional BUT a great hack if you’re having trouble writing characters— just go back to this well and the jokes will be waiting for you.

• Saw two movies this week. Warning! I wrote a lot about them.

“Strawberry Mansion” (2022): Kentucker Audley, the Bob Dylan of modern independent cinema, just made his dream movie.

He doesn’t let movies become podcasts that are called “Unmade Dream Projects;” he sees his visions through.

And what a vision. “Strawberry Mansion” is the lush, candy colored kid’s movie made strictly for adults you didn’t know you always wanted to see. The story is high concept yet deceptively simple. Taking place in 2035 (although it looks like 1985), James Preble (Audley), a dream auditor, takes inventory of a vivacious, elderly woman’s (Penny Fuller) past dreams and taxes her visions until he develops a relationship with her younger, imagined self. It falls apart when the woman’s evil son (Reed Birney, who I swear was sitting in the aisle across from me and Anna at the Quad Cinema) tries to prevent our protagonist from accessing his mom’s thoughts, flipping the movie’s charms on its head turning it into a literal nightmare. 

A simple yet gentle, cross generational love story would have sufficed.

Anyhow, when the movie works, it really soars.

With an onslaught of mind-melding visuals like a saxophone-playing frog waiter, a futuristic, glitchy detective in the forefront of a retro 1930s backdrop and sexy close ups of buttered bread and a strawberry ice cream cone being licked, Audley and his co-director Albert Birney discover something special- they can make the magic, indefinable fuzzy feel of dreams become very real.

They’re certainly helped by a gorgeous, melancholy synth score by the master Dan Deacon.

By my estimation, it’s equal parts Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry in scope, attention to detail, inventiveness and obsession with a handmade, DIY aesthetic that indie audiences crave.

I’d say this was DIY AF FTW (Currently playing in theaters. Run to see this oddball movie on the big screen before it leaves).

“Power of the Dog” (2021): Every prognosticator in the game is positing this as this year’s Best Picture frontrunner at the Academy Awards. Having now seen what all the fuss is about, I get the hype. Fastidious director Jane Campion has created a cinematic world that resembles great literature just as much as it does cinema.

Set 110 years before “Strawberry Mansion” in 1925 Montana (we know this because of odd colloquialisms lost to the sands of time like “Open your talker” and “plain sailing”) and filmed in New Zealand, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemons play enterprising bachelor brothers with an adversarial relationship (the surly, hateable Cumberbatch repeatedly calls Plemons “fatso”). The two share a home and a life together until Plemons weds recently widowed Kirsten Dunst after helping out at her restaurant for maybe three minutes. The bar was low in 1925 Montana. Any small act of kindness could net you a wife that’s out of your league (to be fair, Dunst and Plemons are married in real life). 

Dunst doesn’t come alone though. In the package deal for the new wife is her sensitive son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who understandably can’t stand the ruthlessly mean Cumberbatch.

Their uncle-nephew relationship, more so than the tragic Dunst/Plemons marriage, becomes the central focus of the film. The elder man is filled with boastful, evil bravado, the younger, a quiet, soulfulness. They make an odd yet compelling pair that gives the narrative a beating heart. 

More self-contained and well-told than “Belfast,” sort of like a lesser “There Will Be Blood,” “Power of the Dog” is a fine film. Elegantly crafted, exquisitely performed and quietly, well, powerful.

This may end up being the least watched, least talked about (Anna wisely pointed out that there’s hardly any Twitter discourse surrounding “PotD”) best picture winner of all time but if it does take home the trophy, IT WOULD BE WORTHY (Streaming on Netflix, but you probably already knew that).

• Comedian Dan Chamberlain wrote a tweet this week that excited me so much I had to share it here. It reads:

“what's your pop culture white whale? i mean unreleased/unrealized stuff like "the day the clown cried" - mine is the rumored jay-z blueprint 3 track "crispy benjamins" which supposedly sampled regina spektor's ‘chemo limo.’”

I couldn’t help myself. Nerded out and carefully used my 280 characters to reply: 

“The 1990 ‘SNL Movie.’ Reviews of the script are mixed but I’ve heard the George Meyer ‘tipping’ segment is fantastic.

The ‘Da Bears’ movie. ‘Hans and Franz.’ All Smigel stuff really.

‘1985’ by Tom Davis.

The lost writer’s strike episode hosted by Michael Cera at UCB.”

If you scroll the thread, there are so many interesting responses like a Modest Mouse/Big Boi album that never happened and the Mike Myers-starring “Sprockets” film (someone shared the screenplay in this tweet’s thread), that it’s worth reading just to discover all the great “what if’s” in pop culture history.

Honestly, sounds like a great episode of “Unmade Dream Projects.”

• Good week for comedy trailers. 

Coming soon are the meta, mixed-animation Lonely Island/Disney collab “Rescue Rangers” starring Mulaney, Samberg and Rogen; Amy Schumer and Michael Cera in the unsettling yet hysterical show “Life and Beth;” a biographical Larry David documentary that’s sure to be a hoot (my first time ever writing “hoot;” it feels wrong) and the satirical “King Knight” about a cult leader whose boring past undoes him.

Not bad, old chaps. Not bad at all.

• Signing off for the week.

Picture me doing a salute or something here ‘cause this thing’s over

Comedy Stray Notes February 16, 2022

• Got tied up with the back-to-back double whammy of the Crypto Bowl and Flower Inflation Day, so I didn’t have any time for this little blog the past two nights. Now that there’s no holiday today (well, other than National Wisconsin Day according to national today dot com), I am back in action.

Buckle up, here’s nine (!) days worth of Stray Notes.

• I have now officially acted in a New York off-off Broadway play. It wasn’t on my bucket list, so I just added it and crossed it off. The play, titled “Royal Oak,” was a 2-hour and 45 minute behemoth of a show about a fashion designer who was thwarted by everyone around him.

My part was small.

I was not the fashion designer nor did I thwart.

Over the course of five shows and innumerable rehearsals, I portrayed a sleazy social worker in a piece of low-level stunt casting (since I’m not a real actor). Like stand-up, my performances had varying degrees of success. Some nights, there were polite laughs. Others, I played my creepy scene to silence. A few times I ad-libbed lines.

My big takeaways from acting now that I’m a full-fledged expert ready to teach a Master Class are that it’s very hard to not look at the audience when you’re “acting” and dropping a line that’s an important plot point like “my sister’s a cop” can negatively impact the entire play.

Truth be told, I don’t think I’ll ever act in another live theatrical production but the experience gave me a newfound respect for actors. Anna Paone and I ran lines at least 25 times on every single train ride we took for a month. Before my scene, I had to put on a wrist watch in the dark which is much more difficult than it has any right to be. I got yelled at for being too quiet in my scene. 

People with talent make it look easy. I’m glad I tried.

• My friend Clayton Porter is a prolific sports short story writer. His Medium account is littered with humorous and supernatural basketball yarns that always zag in unexpected directions. Lately though, Clayton’s interests have shifted from hoops to the links and his latest golf-centric ‘Twilight Zone”-esque “Penmar” wholly reflects that.

The 34-minute read (Medium’s estimation) tells the story of 40-something Griffin who’s just trying to get nine holes by himself before the course closes. That is, until he’s joined by Seb, a clumsy, mysterious fellow linksman who plays all nine with him- physically and mentally.

There are smart bits of comedy between the two littered throughout with Seb teaching Griffin how to fix his swing even though Griffin is the far superior golfer as well as astute observations about the difficulty of making prolonged conversation with strangers you’re forced to interact with.

On a storytelling level, Clayton does a few things expertly here playing on his protagonist’s frugality (he golfs on this particular day because he had already laid out a down payment on the game) and poor time management skills (he should have gone home to be with his wife and daughter on what was a special night) to give “Penmar” the weight and stakes it needs.

Told in nine chapters, one for each hole, Clayton incorporates stories within stories and it all leads to a chilling conclusion that’s giving me goosebumps just thinking about it.

If you have a penchant for golf or off-kilter slice of life, give “Penmar” a chance.

• Boris Khaykin just launched his new sketch platform “Billionaire Space Program” last week and the “yeah, we go there attitude” in their first offering “Stop and Frisk” demonstrates that, yeah, this is a collective to keep an eye on.

The one-minute vid, starring Derek Humphrey and John Swan as a cop and pedestrian respectively, takes what appears to be a racially motivated stop and frisk by a crooked cop in multiple unexpected directions that cross the line of decency. However, the lead performances are so winning that it works.

*I was the boom operator on this set. The best thing that happened was when Derek was frisking John, a plucky bystander filmed the interaction with their phone to expose what they thought was a corrupt cop. I mean, there was a whole film crew already recording but this would-be vigilante missed that and thought they would document the interaction. I’ll never forget it.

• Audible is rolling out ambitious comedy podcasts with big name comics lending their voice talents to this scripted content.

It’s the best.

The first in their slate was Achilles Stamatelaky’s “Christmas Delivery” starring a jaded Gillian Jacobs and giddy Sam Richardson along with J.K. Simmons, Janeane Garofalo, Jackie Hoffman and many more in a joke-heavy mash up of “Elf,” “A Christmas Carol” and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” In fact, it’s so funny it doesn’t need to be the Christmas season to appreciate this series- you can enjoy it on dreary February work days.

Over the course of six 20-minute episodes, Achilles tells the story of Jacobs’ Beth who has to deliver meals on Christmas Eve to in order to earn a bonus that will net her enough coin to win an auction for a record by her favorite blues musician Chunky Legs (who comes packaged with fake blues songs). Everything is going according to plan until she hits Richardson’s happy go lucky, absent-minded character Andy Pepper on her route. He joins her for the remainder of her deliveries and together, they learn the true meaning of Christmas visiting major players from Beth’s troubled past.

Satisfyingly told with rich, laugh out loud jokes like Richardson’s character being “excited for celebrities to release awful Christmas albums, Jacobs’ music snob telling Thom Yorke his new album is “bloated and overrated” when she worked as a college DJ and a fortune teller whose iPhone unintentionally plays ominous sound effects when delivering prophecies, the series breezes by crazy fast and is worth the price of an Audible subscription by itself.

• Early ‘80s SNL cast member Gary Kroeger maintains the fantastic sociopolitical blog “Gary Has Issues” that occasionally touches on his tenure at the show that made his name. This past week, he shared a throwback entry from his time that he attended the show’s 40th anniversary.

Through his clear-eyed account of what it was like to be an insider at the major event rubbing shoulders with the likes of Paul Rudd, Billy Crystal and Martin Short to name just a few, Kroeger makes us readers feel like we’re there with him. My favorite anecdote was about how he and his son sat next to David Koechner for the 3.5-hour affair who ran bits on the two of them. That’s something that would never make the broadcast but is exactly what fans want.

Already can’t wait to read what he has to say about the 50th anniversary in three years.

• Saw a show and a movie this week. There was also a podcast episode and oral history in there as well. Not surprisingly, I liked them all quite a bit.

“Only Murders in the Building” (2021): The comedy murder mystery genre is everywhere. “Search Party.” “The After Party.” “Murderville.” Then, there’s this 10-episode sitcom that has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s just as good as that score indicates and better than any movie chasing Oscar bait that I’ve seen this year.

Comprised of equal parts “whodunit” mystery and slapstick-y satire, Steve Martin, Martin Short (the most fun actor alive) and Selena Gomez have pulled off the impossible- a show about podcasts that is just as compelling as it is hysterical.

For the uninitiated, “OMITB” tells the story of three affluent-seeming New York neighbors with a penchant for true crime brought together by their love of Tina Fey’s NPR-like Cinda Canning.

When a real-life murder takes place in their building, the three take their knowledge and snap into action devising a podcast (appropriately titled “Only Murders In The Building”) and begin snooping around the other building dwellers to find out who could have killed one of their fellow tenants.

Featuring twists, turns, tight plotting, a literal murderer’s row of a cast (Nathan Lane, Roy Wood Jr., Jane Lynch, Jaboukie Young-White and Amy Ryan are just some of the standouts), Martin Short’s obsession with dips and stylized episodes unlike anything else on TV (no spoilers but I’m talking about episode seven), this show really took me by surprise. I had mild expectations given that murder mysteries seem to be played out but I was completely taken with this sitcom. BY TROJAN HORSING THE COMEDY INTO THE RICH STORY, “OMITB” DISTANCES ITSELF FROM THE PACK (Streaming on Hulu).

*It should be noted I did have a few minor quibbles with the series. They are as follows: 1) Selena Gomez is so expressionless, which even if it’s intentional, dampens the show’s lively energy; 2) the bit Jane Lynch does with Steve Martin in their episode together is masterful but it was done first in “Mr. Mayor” with Ted Danson in 2020 and 3) this whole show could have been solved with a surveillance camera (I forget if they covered this in an early episode. I bet they did and I look foolish).

That’s all.

“Secretary” (2002): The ultimate bizarre but somewhat erotic Valentine’s Day movie. Starring a young Maggie Gyllenhaal as a recently released institution inmate readjusting to society, this early 2000s film takes a minute to get to its cat and mouse BDSM game.

First, the filmmaker slowly introduces us to the tortured lead’s life in the shadow of her recently married sister and alcoholic father before finding herself gaining employment at James Spader’s one-man law firm. Something is clearly off there. Upon arrival, furniture and papers are strewn about but she doesn’t seem to notice or care. All she wants is the work.

Once she starts, long stares and legitimate sexual harassment between the co-workers ensue culminating in a fantastical, wish-fulfillment conclusion that rewards these two depraved souls that were made for each other.

Perfect for Valentine’s.

Some find “Secretary” sexy, but I admire it for the unsettling performances, offbeat pacing and “Breaking Bad” early 2000s aesthetic. Plus, at one point, characters eat dinner in a laundromat. A WELL-DONE STORY OF AN UNWELL WOMAN SEEKING AN UNWELL MAN (Streaming on Tubi).

“Fly on the Wall” with Darrell Hammond: At the risk of getting stale, I vowed I wouldn’t write about this podcast every week. Heck, I even refrained from documenting my thoughts on the fantastic Conan and Tom Hanks episodes. However, the novelty of master impressionist Darrell Hammond sitting down with impression hall of famer Dana Carvey was too delicious not to tell the masses about (and by masses, I mean the nine people who have gotten this far).

For one hour, SNL nerds get to live in a fantasy world where Carvey and Hammond perform dueling Regises and Bill Clintons. They explain their thought process behind finding the hook that elevates an impression from accurate to funny (Carvey would often speak in gibberish to get there) and completely bond over their unique connection.

Best of all though, David Spade is there too. I’m a bit of a “third wheel on podcasts” fetishist and this hit the sweet spot. There’s something hilarious about someone sitting in on a conversation for an hour and not getting to bring anything to the table. Sure, Spade has moments but when Darrell Hammond asked him, “Spade, did you just yawn?” while he was mid-story to which he replied, “Am I on camera?” I had heard my favorite podcast moment of the year. So real. 

Also, of note: Dana Carvey claimed he saw “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” 17 times. After doing my research, that is the average amount of times the average 60-year-old Boomer has seen this movie.

• I applied to write Vulture’s comedy beat months ago and was quickly turned down via email before they had even hired someone for the position. I’d keep seeing the job listing for months taunting me. This week, I made peace with my swift rejection when I read the comprehensive oral history of SeeSo by Will Storey.

Storey lays out the story of the streamer that sounded like a great idea on paper but with limited advertising, budget and overall resources ended up becoming a punchline. Told from the suits, creatives, fair weather fans are exposed to fascinating behind the scenes details like SeeSo was very close to being named ‘Picky’” and seasons of shows that were filmed never aired.

My grudge is now long gone. Storey’s masterful story has me cheerfully looking forward to what Vulture does with the ill-fated rise and fall of Clubhouse and Twitter Fleets in the future.

• Last week, I promised I would award the best joke answering the Quiplash prompt “What they call pooping in the Land of Oz.”

First place is Brian Scott McFadden’s “Dropping A Flying Monkey."

Coming in a close second is Michael Sullivan’s “Representing the Lollipoop Guild.”

Thank you, guys. You hard work has been recognized.

• Finally, RIP Ivan Reitman.

Reitman, who directed “Ghostbusters,” “Meatballs,” “Stripes” and so many more is one of the most important and gifted comedy film directors of all time.

I paid my respects by listening to his 2014 WTF interview. He lived a hell of a life emigrating from Czechoslovakia at five to Canada, fell in with ‘70s comedy greats (Eugene Levy, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, everyone else) and ended up wrapping his career working with his son Jason.

The episode closes with a touching moment about working on “Up In The Air” with Jason that makes me miss this comedic titan even more.

Give the podcast a listen. You’ll hear a little too much about his work on the 2014 film “Draft Day” but you will find a portrait of a fascinating, brilliant human being.

With that being said, I bid you all adieu for the week.

Class dismissed lol

Comedy Stray Notes February 7, 2022

• The job of the comedian is to write an overlong weekly newsletter and put the word “comedy” in the title.

Now let’s do this thing.

• I’ve heard the word “Quiplash” thrown around in comedy circles but I’d never seen or played the game myself. However, when comedian/impassioned letter writer Matt Storrs asked me if I wanted to play, I jumped in head first (to be clear, I said, “Yeah, I’ll play” when asked over Messenger).

On Tuesday night, I joined a group of Quiplash pros spearheaded by Tristan Miller and Storrs having done minimal research on my end. The game seemed a bit intimidating- two competing writers go head to head entering “quips” into prompts like “What they call pooping in the Land of Oz.” Basically, it’s “Apples to Apples” or “Cards Against Humanity” with actual creativity (yeah, I said it). While it might seem silly, coming up with a solid joke on the spot is no easy feat. Seriously. Try drafting a great punchline for “Pooping in Oz” in 45 seconds. I’ll give the best response I see here a shout out next week.

Anyhow, I did OK. I won a few, I lost a few, I heard some great riffs. A few times I finished in the middle of the pack and others I came in last. Either way, I’m now a bit obsessed with Quiplash and can’t wait until my next go.

If you’ve never seen the game, you can watch this Twitch stream of our match from last Tuesday. You just might get hooked too.

• I’ve written 50+ profiles on my “A Profile About You” site about magicians, runners, comics, authors, directors, teachers and copywriters but none have endured anything quite as crazy as comedian/storyteller Joey Rinaldi, the subject of my latest piece.

I won’t get into the grisly details because it’s better to read in full but I did love this paragraph (unrelated to the crazy story) I wrote that exemplifies Joey’s can-do spirit when it comes to comedy:

“Joey has turned trolls into fans. One audience member trashed his comedy online and rather than getting sensitive, Joey responded with “Thank you! These are good notes.” Shortly after, the digital heckler came to a live show to see if he took the feedback.

How did we get there? You’ll have to read the whole profile to find out.

• For some reason, New Mexico doesn’t have a comedy club. It doesn’t quite add up. The state has a blossoming scene, thriving arts community and a sizable population. Rather than accept this reality, comedian/podcaster/raconteur Sarah Kennedy treats this curiosity like a full-on mystery giving it the true-crime podcast treatment in her excellent series “Comedy Ghost Town.”

Half tongue in cheek, half deadly serious, Kennedy interviews local comics, politicians and theater folks to get to the bottom of this issue that’s been vexing her for years. In just three episodes, she’s extrapolated on the differences between bar shows and theater shows, compared New Mexico to Denver and Milwaukee’s flourishing clubs and most importantly completely hooked me. This pod is made for comedy nerds and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

• Milestone birthdays deserve something a little extra. If there’s a zero at the end of your age you’re turning, make it memorable.

That’s what Genevieve Rice did with her excellent “40 for 40” special she dropped last week. To celebrate, she performed her tight 40 over Twitch and absolutely knocked it out of the park. I was especially taken with a fantastic bit of hers early in the set about how after she took a short hiatus from performing, she had to start telling herself she was “pretty funny for a woman in comedy” and never let up from there. Stick around until the very end for the world’s most sophisticated poop joke.

• I religiously read a daily business newsletter called Morning Brew that dispenses financial news in a snarky, easily digestible format. At the end of each edition, they’ll recommend a video or two they enjoyed and I figure that if they went out of their way to recommend, I’ll give it a look.

Much to my surprise, this week, I clicked on one of their videos and found that waiting for me on the other side of that link was an ultra-viral Alex Falcone TikTok. I smiled and clicked “Play.” The next 96 seconds were a freakin’ delight. In the video, Alex explains that he “likes to hide things but has nothing to hide.” What follows is an increasingly clever showcase of all the items Alex has put inside surprising spaces like a baseball inside a copy of the book “Inside Baseball” which all leads to an elaborately orchestrated finale.

I’ve done the legwork and made sure this video wasn’t hidden from you- now go seek it out.

• ”Someone Will Love You In All Your Damaged Glory” by Rafael Bob-Waksberg (2019): Early in the pandemic, I noticed a hardcover book with an immaculate pink cover at my brother’s apartment. After quickly discovering it was a collection of stories written by the creator of “Bojack Horseman,” I asked my brother if I could borrow it.

Almost two years later, after tearing through the first 100 pages, putting it down for months and then limping to the finish line this past week, I have finally completed one of my all-time favorite collections of humorous short stories. In this 240-page wild ride that’s reminiscent of Simon Rich at his very best, Waksberg takes us on immaculately constructed journeys from the perspective of a dog who refers to his owner as “ManMonster,” a “missed connections” couple who spend their entire lives on a New York City train and never end up talking to each other and the extravagant capper that takes place in the fictional PresidentLand which serves as a fictional Disney Land analog with Chester Arthurs and Benjamin Harrisons in the place of Mickeys and Goofys.

All stories are loosely tied together by the theme of “love” but what really unites them is Waksberg’s unmistakable comedic voice that employs the word “like” artfully. 

I’ll definitely be revisiting this one.

•The back cover includes blurbs from both of Waksberg’s grandmothers. If you find that funny, then you’ll love the dense, sweet and absurd material that’s to come.

• With Oscar nominations fast approaching, I had to knock a few of the major players off my annual watch list. While I have a long way to go, here are quick thoughts on two biggies that you should be hearing about on Feb. 8 when all the nominees are announced.

“Belfast” (2021): The coming of age film from auteurs has been everywhere since Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma.” Last year, was PT Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza,” this year, is Spielberg’s forthcoming “The Fabelmans” (with Seth Rogen and David Lynch?). Also, in the mix is Kenneth Branagh’s love letter to his childhood in Northern Ireland when the Irish and Protestants warred against one another. Elegantly filmed with a roving camera in black and white, Branagh immerses the audience in a distant world not unlike our turbulent present day in the States. 

“Belfast” is told from the perspective of an 11-year-old Branagh stand-in (Jude Hill) and his family as they decide whether or not they should stay in such a dangerous town in the midst of political upheaval. There’s young love, death and a dose of mischievous youthfulness which are all necessary ingredients for your standard bildungsroman.

A handful of scenes strike a cinematic chord— a standoff between Branagh’s father (Jamie Dornan) and protesters as well as a lip sync to “Everlasting Love” won’t be forgotten anytime soon— and the grandparents played by Ciarin Hinds and Judi Dench are so lived-in you forget they’re actors but the movie’s episodic storytelling put me to sleep in a few places. I feel guilty for checking out since there really is so much to like from the Van Morrison heavy soundtrack to the vintage “Star Trek” footage. Therefore, “Belfast” joins the list of movies I respect but don’t fully enjoy. A WARM FILM ABOUT GROWING UP THAT SOMEHOW LEFT ME COLD. 

* Midway through the movie, Anna Paone pointed out to me that a man a few rows ahead of us was FILMING the movie on the big screen with his phone. He continued to do so for around three minutes before stopping. No idea why anyone would do that in the streaming era but that guy, he did. Hope he enjoys watching that one scene in the middle of the movie again.

“Being The Ricardos” (2021): After having mostly been known as America’s most well-known  screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin has tried his hand at directing over the past few years. “Molly’s Game,” “The Trial of Chicago Seven” and now “Being The Ricardos” came in quick succession.  

Each movie has been a little worse than the last (“Molly’s Game” is a ton o’ fun). “Ricardos” sees Sorkin doing his comedy dissection act again, and like “Studio 60,” he proves that the backstage drama at a show known for being funny is not nearly as compelling as a comedy about comedians.

Here, Lucy (Nicole Kidman, occasionally transformative, other times grating) and Desi (Javier Bardem, understandably over the top) bicker, banter and battle studio executives for the better part of the film trying to get the suits to work on their terms. “Lucy was a television trailblazer and fought for her vision” is a point that Sorkin can’t stop hammering home without an ounce of subtlety. When the movie shines though are the moments in which Kidman’s Lucy uses her comedy court vision imagining sitcom scenes in their final form before the writers do. 

Near the end of the film, she envisions Fred (J.K. Simmons, as great as ever) and Ethel (a fiery Nina Arianda) on a bench too small for the two of them at a dinner. She dreams up every way this piece of physical comedy could be funnier and for a moment, we connect with the fun side of what made Lucy so special. She really was a true comic visionary and more emphasis on this focused side of her personality rather than the warts and all tale we get here would have served the movie well. Give us philistines what we want. AN OSCAR CONTENDER BASED SOLELY ON THE FILM’S PEDIGREE AND NOT ITS QUALITY (Streaming on Amazon Prime).

• A friend gifted me a free week’s worth of Master Classes and I spent most of it taking lessons from Judd Apatow (after I finished this course, I took in a few exhilarating, rambly David Mamet sessions). Although I’ve heard most of what Apatow has to say in podcast episodes I’ve heard over the years, I’ll do you a quick favor for getting this far and outline a few of the most valuable filmmaking nuggets he shared (he taught quite a bit about standup as well but this is what stood out to me):

- You can always remove jokes from a scene where the comedy isn’t working and tell people it’s a drama.

- Don’t take too long in pitch meetings. No studio executives want to hear you talk for more than five minutes.

- Be so active and good in a writer’s room that they can’t get rid of you.

- Don’t be a “room killer” that drains the fun.

- In a test screening of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” the creative team toyed with just how long audiences would be ok with seeing Segel’s junk whittling the shot down from 20 to four seconds.

• In its off week, SNL generously rolled out three (!) cut for time sketches from the past two episodes. All three are good. One is great, legendary even. They are:

- Please Don’t Destroy’s “New Personality” in which the guys try out new personas like “guy who lost all his scientific documents,” overly friendly Southern waitress and Snape. Essentially, this is the guys debuting what they’d be doing had they become cast members. All in all, this one is just as frenetic and self-deprecating as the rest of their work. If you count yourself among the rapidly growing PDD fanbase, you’ll dig this.

- The goofy logic to “Nice Jail” (“it’s like regular jail but nice”) with Willem Dafoe is so all over the place that you can’t help but admire its bravado. Plus, Willem Dafoe repeatedly refers to himself as “vampire head ass.”

- “Architect Presentation” with Will Forte is hands down my number one sketch of the year thus far. I don’t want to give anything away other than the premise which is “a band of misfits pitches a nonsensical, aggressively bizarre redesign for the city of San Francisco.” The only problem was this comedy confection never made it to air. Thankfully though, now you can see this incredibly dumb and brilliant video whenever you want.

• For the past few weeks, I’ve been promising something big. Still on its way. 

You’ll just have to keep reading every week until it comes* muahaha, muaHAhaHA, MUAHAHAHA!

* Please read even after the big thing if that’s cool

Comedy Stray Notes January 31, 2022

• There is no greater acting role than the cameo. You get all the credit that the other performers who worked harder receive and somehow people remember you more because you were in the thing…less? Sign me up.

This past week, Barak Ziv and Carlos Garcia asked me to make a quick appearance in their hilarious four-minute short and once I learned I only had to show up and say three lines, I was in. No memorization AND all the glory is what I’m all about.

Barak and Carlos do the heavy lifting playing coworkers over Zoom waiting for the boss (spoiler: me) struggling to make small talk while I log in. The awkwardness is relatable and the perpetually escalating lying leads to surprising, uncomfortable conversation culminating with a quick moment with yours truly.

Full disclosure: it took me longer to write these three short paragraphs than it did to act in this short.

• All that being said, acting is not my strong suit. However, this week, I was asked in a pinch to play a small part in a new, upcoming play called “Royal Oak” with Anna Paone.

As you may recall, I love a good low stakes role, so I said I was in.

Soon after, I was sent eight (!) pages of dialogue. That seemed like quite a bit more than a cameo to me. Turns out “Royal Oak” is in the neighborhood of 150 pages making it a small part in the grand scheme of things for this play.

Rather than dropping out, I decided to dive in and run lines every chance I could with Anna to fine-tune my scene as a “creepy social worker.” With two weeks before the play, I felt like I got a decent grasp on the dialogue and headed to actual rehearsal with a bit of pep in my step.

When the director called me up for my scene, I wore a mask and did my best.

He called cut before it was over and said, “This scene is dead.”

For a second, I was pretty angry. I was asked to be in this play without having been seen for a rehearsal and repeatedly claiming, “I’m not a real actor.” Constructive criticism would have been helpful.

However, I think my fragile ego needed that hit. When my scene partner and I performed our creepy eight pages a second time, I came to life. Maybe I really was sleepwalking through the scene before. Not sure if I’ll ever be as good again as when  my talent was called into question but if you want to see the play, you can buy tickets here. It runs Feb. 9 through 12 for five shows.

• Matt Vita quietly produces timely, banger comedy hip-hop crossovers that deserve way more attention. His latest, “COVO” featuring David Rey Martinez clocks in at less than 90 seconds and has the catchiest, most 2022 chorus of all time with “I got antibodies, I got antibodies.” Keep an eye out for subtle background jokes like Vita and Martinez’s post-COVID checklist which includes both “Get more COVID tests” and “Order Domino’s.”

• The TikTok of the week this past seven-day period was a no-brainer for me. Bo Ballew’s mock interview at the unemployment center for an important job (you gotta discover what it is yourself- I’m not gonna ruin this amazing reveal) is laugh out loud funny, original and deceptively simple. Wish I had thought of this dynamite concept myself.

• Had a bit of a TV viewing victory lap and finished multiple shows that I’d been chipping away at for months yesterday. I’ll miss these shows but thankfully one is coming back and sadly the other was prematurely canceled.

“Succession” (2018 - ): Imagine if “The Office” had higher stakes or “Hamlet” was set at Fox News and you’ll get what might be the best modern corporate satire meets exploration of dysfunctional families of any show on television. In its three seasons, “Succession” has deftly made light of delusional wealthy people who have no real skills— my favorite scene in the series is when Logan Roy (a ferocious Brian Cox, in the patriarchal role), the leader of a major media conglomerate, asks for a printed out copy of an article rather than reading from his phone— use their high social standing in greedy, self-serving ways. 

Logan’s children, or those who are in line to succeed him as the head of his company Waystar Royco, are acting powerhouses, Kendall (Jeremy Strong, I held off the entire series to read the infamous New Yorker profile about his method acting practices and it was 100% worth the wait), Shiv (Sarah Snook, master of finishing sentences with, “yeah?”), Roman (Kieran Culkin, if you don’t know the scene that inspired the meme where he’s embarrassed in a boardroom you’re missing out) and Connor (Alan Ruck, yes, Cameron from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” playing the out of the loop older brother), are the stars of the show. Their jockeying to be their pops’ favorite is certainly entertaining but the series is stolen by newly minted classic comic duo Cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun- the latest in a long line of stammering nervous comic actors following Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg) and Tom Wambsgans (Matthew McFayden, somehow able to make us care about the world’s most insecure douche), the two family outsiders who know they’re more disposable than Logan’s direct descendants.

Seasons one and two are a blast putting twists on familiar TV tropes such as the surprise party, ailing elderly family member hospital visit, bachelor party, infidelity and large wedding making them feel completely new. Give your audience great characters like this show does and any scenario comes to life. Plus, excellently observed moments like Kendall logging into a conference call as “Little Lord F*ckleroy” or interim CEO Gerri getting caught screenshotting her name on a TV ticker, don’t hurt either. There’s a lot to like.

Season Three starts slowly though. The first few episodes felt like a pale imitation of the show that had blown me away. Most episodes seemed to blend together. Power struggle this, Logan Roy ailment that. Had these great characters run their course? Just when I started to lose faith, the show found its footing in the final three episodes. If you haven’t seen this show, just try Season Three Episode Seven “Too Much Birthday.” If that doesn’t do it for you, you might be a lost cause. ONE OF THE MOST COMPELLING 29 HOURS OF TELEVISION I’VE EVER SEEN (give or take a few episodes) (Streaming on HBO Max).

“Mr. Corman” (2021): To this show’s detriment, it starts very slowly. I watched the first three episodes about an anxious fifth grade teacher living in modern Los Angeles played by Joseph Gordon Levitt back in October and then sort of forgot about this quirky, drab show with musical interludes. Early this year, I started back up on a whim while doing the dishes and laundry. I’m so glad I did.

By being patient, I discovered a compassionate show with a penchant for standalone episodes about side characters like JGL’s roommate (Arturo Castro) who has a life outside of the sitcom’s protagonist (episode four) and another about all the different twists and turns JGL’s life could have taken (episode seven) in what I would call the most stunning half hour of TV I’ve seen all year. Reminds me why I got into film in the first place.

JGL wears his heart on his sleeve for this series paying homage to influences like Harry Nilsson’s underappreciated album “The Point” and creating a whimsical, painterly like imagery evoking the best of Michel Gondry.

At its core though, this show is the story of a man who is too tightly wound and needs to let go. In the rare moments when the lead character does break free from the inner trappings of his mind— a glossy, stylized parking lot fight set piece here, a quiet conversation where he reconnects with his father (underplayed by Hugo Weaving) and a scene demonstrating the simple pleasure of rummaging through his past creative work in a pandemic episode— the joy is palpable, earned, alive.

It’s a shame this show was canceled. I’d love to see what they did with another ten-episode order. Give it a try and make sure you stick around for longer than three episodes. YOU JUST MAY MAY DISCOVER YOUR NEW FAVORITE SHOW (Streaming on Apple TV).

*Interestingly, this show was filmed in New Zealand at the height of 2020 mania and was almost exclusively focused on the early days of the pandemic in the US with characters taking COVID super seriously. The irony was not lost on me.

“Fly on The Wall'' with Tina Fey: Any name-droppy show about former SNL cast members is going to score with me. There’s nothing I enjoy listening to more. I wish I had more intellectual pursuits but this is what pleases my ear canals most.

This episode was a gas- but that’s to be expected with Tina Fey at the wheel. Riffs about Kevin Hart having forgotten he was on a bodybuilding show, Adam Sandler telling Fey, “Nice hustle” after she bombed at a charity show in her early days of stardom and a story of how “Mom Jeans” came to be were exactly what I came for. Better yet, Fey got into the details of her husband Jeff Richmond’s job as a composer for comedy shows. It was fascinating to hear how he has to exercise patience with comedians who aren’t musically trained which led to a story from Spade about how Chris Farley didn’t have the wherewithal to do audio tracks on the set of “Black Sheep” way back when.

My favorite moment though was when the three all gush over current cast members James Austin Johnson and Bowen Yang; I don’t know why but it’s comforting to learn that comedy legends are also comedy nerds like they rest of us and keep up with the show even after they’ve left.

“Saturday Night Live” with Willem Dafoe and Katy Perry: Following last week’s high water mark Will Forte episode, I fully expected a comedown. It’s hard to produce back to back top notch 90-minute batches of comedy and I suspected right.

While there were a few quiet wins in this week’s Dafoe-helmed effort, this was mostly a standard, forgettable entry in the storied comedy show’s never-ending run.

As always, here’s my semi-lazy, baseball-themed rundown of how each sketch fared.

Home runs:

N/A although the dancing mushrooms in Katy Perry’s musical guest performances did make me laugh quite hard.

Triples:

Now I’m Up: A jam in its own right, this ode to getting up in the middle of the night and staying up certainly rang true. After playing that beat for nearly two minutes, Dafoe appears as a crazed late-night infomercial pitch man. For just a second, the show was operating on all cylinders. Maybe the highlight of the night.

Please Don’t Destroy: The studio audience didn’t react much to the group’s offering this week where Martin befriends a tween much to his pals’ dismay but it really worked for me. PDD’s formula where one of the group members does something weird while the other two riff and overcorrect hits hard again.  

Nugenix: This one-note boner joke commercial featuring spokespersons Frank Thomas, Doug Flutie and Willem Dafoe gets points for its willingness to veer into left field and go much stranger than your average erectile dysfunction parody. Heck, the sound effects and facial expressions alone bump it up from a double to a stand up triple.

Office Song: With two minutes left to go in the show, SNL surprised audiences with a super late, “two to one” sketch rather than relegating it to “Cut For Time” land. By putting Dafoe in the surprising position as a temp trying to impress a group of musically in sync office workers, the show finally found his comedic strength as the outsider who can’t get into the rhythm just as the clock ran out. Dafoe’s portrayal of a dweeb here gave me real John Malkovich “Calculator” vibes (if you know, you know).

Doubles:

Weekend Update: OK, I called Dafoe in “Now I’m Up” the highlight of the night but Peyton Manning surprisingly gushing over “Emily In Paris” and Aidy Bryant and Bowen Yang’s cultural critics are a close second and third. Otherwise, it was a fairly standard issue Weekend Update with somewhat easy Biden bits. I have to give credit where it’s due though- Jost and Che’s recurring “Mitch McConnell seen here” bit rocked again.

Beauty and the Beast: A cleverly observed moment from a 30-year-old Disney movie finds the mismatched pair spying via mirror on Belle’s dad finally getting a moment to himself and indulging himself in his alone time. Once the sketch telegraphs that he’ll be doing weird stuff at his place, Dafoe gamely gets as delightfully weird as one could hope for but that’s the gist of it here.

Singles:

Russia Cold Open: Timely cold opens rarely age well and this one felt a little too disconnected from the cultural zeitgeist to fully connect, especially the soft, random heighten with a middle school consultant. I wish we got a Neil Young/Joe Rogan standoff instead but I’ll settle and give James Austin Johnson well-deserved credit where it’s due- his “I’m going to flame those guys in the comments” in response to a choreographed TikTok was inspired.

Willem Dafoe monologue: Willem D. is one of my favorite character actors and he was serviceable in this opening here playing on his humble Wisconsin roots (who knew?) and explaining his early days in acting admitting he’s “not one of those subtle actors like Nicolas Cage or Al Pacino.” Chuckle-worthy, easy single, base hit.

Tenant Meeting: It’s great to see the whole cast get a chance to shine in these walk-on-a-thon sketches but they’re often such scattered mixed bags that the high highs (Aristotle’s confused middle aged man who uses Google Translate to communicate and Chris Redd’s Robert who is always mistakenly called “Jamarcus”) are evened out by the lows (the NYU students who “lost their baking soda”).

Dog Show: The “let’s describe these cute dogs with offbeat traits” sketches always have nice, small moments (“dog’s fears include the Netflix start up sound”) but rarely surprise anymore. Maybe I’m a sour non-dog owner but this is oft-tread ground on the show.

Good Morning, Columbus: Once again, another sketch that follows a classic formula. Here, it’s the double entendre game. Juvenile, silly and fun, there’s nothing particularly special about Good Morning, Columbus but you may laugh in spite of yourself.

• Earlier this week, fellow comedy consumer extraordinaire Michael Sullivan sent me the excellent four-minute “Comedian Destroys Heckler” short. If you think you’ve seen every variation, settle down. You haven’t. This one goes weirder, deeper and more cinematic than any other entry I’ve seen. Just stay for the whole thing and enjoy this delightfully bizarre piece all the way to its natural conclusion.

• Now, folks, your moment of zen: this review of “Knives Out” is so brilliantly, loopily dumb in its misguided logic it has to be seen to be believed.

• Last week, I promised something really cool in this newsletter. It should be here next week with a full explanation for the delay. 

Your patience is appreciated, fam

Comedy Stray Notes January 24, 2022

• Most projects take months from idea to completion. At least for me, usually a premise will pop into my head, I’ll throw it in a 105-page (and growing) file called “Twitter drafts” and file it away to write later. Then, once it gets past the writing stage, I might draw storyboards and toy with the idea of filming. If (and that’s a major if) it gets filmed, I’ll usually hold off two weeks before even looking at the footage. Then, I’ll edit. Next, I send the video to a few folks looking for feedback. I’ll take their notes into consideration and then finally, I will slow roll the video out onto Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Rizzle, Reddit and Sharezo.

It’s a real process.

Last Saturday though, I woke up with a fully formed sketch playing in my head. Never even wrote a word down- I knew exactly how it would look, sound and where the jokes were. When Anna got up, I explained the concept and she was ready to go even offering a few clutch punch-ups on the spot. A few hours later, we were filming. A local bakery even let us use their space as a location and the owner agreed to act opposite Anna as well. Later that night, I had edited the sketch. It was done.

In film school, you repeatedly hear about “Murphy’s Law” where anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. However, for this one 70-second sketch (it’s very short), every little thing went right.  

If you want to see “Como Estas,” the easiest, fastest, cheapest sketch I’ve ever filmed, here she is.

• When I moved to New York, I went to A LOT of open mics. The first couple months are really tough when you have to prove that you’re in it for the long haul (ironically I haven’t done any stand up this year) but the best part is thanks to the allure of NYC, you meet other comics that arrived right at the same time as you forming an “unofficial class.”

One member of my “class” (at least in my mind) was fellow Arizona native Brian Bahe. Brian went to high school literally across the canal from my school in Central Phoenix and was at Arizona State when I was there. Somehow, we never crossed paths until we started doing Brooklyn mics though. 

Over the course of the next seven or so years (leading up to the pandemic), I saw Brian perform everywhere almost every day. We ran a mic called “Home Runs and Strike Outs” at a sports bar off the Grand L train stop in a converted storage room in late 2016-early 2017, he hosted my goofy half hour I filmed in 2018 and somehow we ended up co-headlining an 8th grade graduation at a school in the Bronx (it did not go well).

This past Sunday, Bahe ran his “Reading From My Phone” hour at Union Hall and although it’s been a minute since I’ve seen him perform live, the kid’s clearly still got it. He opened by bringing a number of bodega treats like Muscle Milk, La Colombe cold brew, Mountain Dew, Doritos and a “Warhead for dessert” onstage since “talking for an hour is a long time.” From there, he launched into material about his Native American heritage starting with a humorous Land Acknowledgement and a family slideshow accompanied by a sweet voicemail from his mom reviewing “The 15:17 to Paris.”

The hour-long set peaked with a grand finale fit for television. Without giving anything away, Brian recounted a botched orgy invitation and escalated the awkwardness by reaching back out to the person he hadn’t contacted for months. 

You’ll have to wait for the release of this freewheeling special to find out what happened.

• SNL proudly lets its freak flag fly during the show’s final five minutes every week and I love them for that. Just last week, they saved the spot for a sketch that took place in a “Texarkana” restaurant that didn’t make a lick of sense.

This week, they gave the entire 90 minutes to “the king of the five to one” Will Forte.

To me, this was far and away the best episode of the season thus far. I’m a bit biased since Forte is one of my all-time favorite cast members but there were more quality laughs here than any other show in this already standout season.

As usual, here’s my baseball-themed rundown breaking down the show by home runs all the way down to whiffs (there were none this week):

Home runs:

Will Forte monologue: Paying homage to his fellow castmates that have hosted the show before him, Forte bitterly makes light of his slightly smaller celebrity than his fellow show alumni. A great subtle nod to his relative lack of mainstream success gets heightened perfectly by a surprise Wiig cameo and then a rare Lorne appearance. This was catnip for any SNL obsessive as it was equal parts self-referential and downright hilarious.

MacGruber: I wanted “The Falconer” but gladly settled for this three-part runner. In each installment, Forte ballsily plays the anti-vax QAnon card amping up MacGruber’s grotesque right winger evolution. Had a lesser comic been handed this material, this series of sketches would have come off as cheap and immature but Forte’s brash idiocy and shamelessness toes the line of cringe comedy and satire beautifully here adding a new dimension to MacGruber.

Kid Klash: As always, I was a bit upset when I saw the elaborate game show set in the interstitial commercial break before we made it to the actual sketch itself. The game show format is so tried and true, it puts me to sleep. Leave it to Forte though to take something commonplace in a wholly new direction. Here, his game show host cruelly forces Aidy Bryant’s child contestant to search for the hidden flag in a vat of whipped cream. Slapstick mixed with menace is not at all what I was expecting but is now all I want from every game show.

Threesome: Once again, a sketch that would have flopped without the presence of Forte, scores. Here, Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day add a “third” to spice things up in the bedroom. That third is a nutso bleach blonde comic creation by Forte named Gannon. Not only does this Gannon undermine Day any chance he gets but his demonstration of how he would make love to Gardner and “fight off” Day was so visceral and graphic, the sketch quickly jumped into classic territory.

Weekend Update: In a long line of “home run” worthy Updates, tonight might have been my favorite of the year. This go-round, the co-anchors were joined by Bowen Yang’s unhinged Chen Biao making fun of NBC correspondents reporting on the Beijing Olympics from Stamford (“have fun walking home from the Metro North at 2 a.m., Grayson”), Sarah Sherman mocking Jost twisting his words every which way morphing his bashful interactions into accusations like “Local Female Body Inspector Colin Jost prefers hairless genitals” and best of all Alex Moffatt’s “guy who just bought a boat” needling Jost yet again for his joint ferry purchase with fellow Staten Island resident Pete Davidson which led to fits of giggles from the King of Staten Island.

On the jokes front, there’s an amazing jab at “Gen Z icon” Kyle Rittenhouse’s attempt to get his rifle back that needs to be heard rather than ruined in a newsletter by me.

Triples:

Jackie and Clancy: Somehow, we didn’t get a true “ten-to-one” sketch from the ultimate “ten-to-one” master but this was close enough in spirit and in the show’s rundown to work for me. Employing the “silly song” blueprint that Wiig can do in her sleep, she and Forte sang nonsense lyrics on their “Songs About Spaceships, Toddlers, Model T Cars and Jars of Beer” album that were so goofy and illogical (“and now they’ll meet the wrath of God and burn in toddler hell” was particularly inspired) that you just have to give in and laugh. 

Doubles:

The Ingraham Angle: In any other episode, this cold open would have been a home run but this episode was so jam packed with comedy goodness that I had to drop it a few notches since I’m grading on a curve here. While funny, my major gripe with these Fox News pieces is they oddly give a platform to right wing ideology. Even if it’s satire, it’s weird to be critical of modern politics from the right’s perspective no matter how distorted it is. All that being said, the mourning of America’s dad Robert Durst was a helluva misdirect.

*I feel bad for the SNL writers who have to watch hours of Fox News to find new things to parody each week but someone’s gotta do it.

**James Austin Johnson trotted out his Trump again and by having him get his point across via Wordle was equal parts timely and smart. By refreshing the “Trump gets a long winded message across via an unconventional medium” bit, they avoided stagnancy (even though we really don’t need more Trump exposure as funny as this gag is).

Cinema Classics: Once again, I’ll be a bit of a downer and admit I’ve never been a fan of this recurring sketch where classic Hollywood movies are reimagined with goofy scenarios. However, the simple inclusion of Forte in the mix makes anything instantly better (did I mention I was a biased fan?). Here, his character repeatedly gaslights his wife (McKinnon) in a parody of “Gaslight.” The manipulations like, “That’s not a book, it’s a rat!” are more harmless than biting but the kooky performances are so fun, that it’s hard not to appreciate the wackiness here.

• When Kenan introduced this sketch as his long-running Reese De’What character, he stumbled over a line. Now I’m not the world’s biggest Kenan fan but I think in his 17 (!) years on the show, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him flub a single piece of dialogue. Gotta give credit where it’s due.

Finally, NBC posted one “cut for time” sketch. Occasionally, they’ll spoil fans and give us two or three but I’ll settle for this week’s parody of ESPN’s First Take. This ridiculous six-minute sketch features a dead-on Stephen A. Smith impression by Chris Redd spouting out hyperbolic statements against Kenan’s Michael Irvin. Eventually, they’re joined by Forte’s crazed football website owner who’s just as loud and opinionated. The sketch makes one point and makes it well- people on TV will argue about anything.

Also, I have to give Kenan credit. His confident delivery of “it’s as American as orange pie” line defending oranges over apples was comedy gold.

• The New York Times puts out a weekly “What to watch this weekend” newsletter that I read pretty religiously on Friday afternoons as soon as I get out of work. I rarely actually get around to watching their recommended selections but this week, their first suggestion was called “The Last Open Mic At The End Of The World” and I couldn’t not watch it.

This 11-minute comedy doc/thing, filmed at the height of the pandemic in 2021 Los Angeles, is a sublime snapshot of COVID-era comedy. In it, Megan Koester plays an ambivalent open mic host perched in a garage waving in comics in cars to perform for her one at a time like a drive through.

No one gets that much stage time- Koester cuts between acts ruthlessly making their crazed sets seem slightly more manic and sadder than your average amateur hour- but the open mic vibe is unmistakable. Half-baked material, overly confessional rants and a nutty conspiracy theory courtesy of Tatenda Mbudzi are all met with utter indifference from Koester. One moment in which she plays a sad comic off with the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” theme was genuinely shocking for its pure heartlessness.

If this really was the last open mic, it’s a rough but entertaining way to go.

• 50 years after its initial release, George Harrison’s enduring “My Sweet Lord” finally gets a music video. Harrison is barely in it though.

The seven-minute short starts with Mark Hammill (yes, Luke Skywalker) explaining to Fred Armisen that he needs to go on a mission to track down “something that he wants him to see.” 

What follows is a scavenger hunt cameo extravaganza featuring “Portlandia” veterans and alt-stars like Vanessa Bayer, Moshe Kasher, Natasha Leggero, Reggie Watts, Patton Oswalt, Weird Al, Brandon Wardell, Jon Hamm, Tim and Eric, Garfunkel and Oates, Taika Waititi, Kyle McLachlan, Three Busy Debras and a bunch more searching for something in suburban neighborhoods and retro movie theaters.

There’s not much of a story other than that and a cryptic message that “what you’ve been searching for has been in front of you all along” but when one of the greatest songs ever written is accompanied by a video featuring all your favorite comic actors and Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh and Jeff Lynne, there’s little reason to complain.

• Might be dropping a big project this week. Watch this space, friend. There might just be a cool surprise waiting.

RIP Louie Anderson. 

Christine Baskets forever