Abbi, Ilana, and Broad City are returning in August.
We know that might seem like a while from now, but thankfully their morsel sized webisodes of Hack Into Broad City offer a bit of relief in the meantime.
Watch the latest one here.
When it comes to keeping a show unpredictable, few are as good as Chris Walsh, Katie Crown, and Davey Johnson.
Trepany House is giving the trio their own night along with a stellar line-up of Karen Kilgariff, Laura Kightlinger, John Ennis, Lizzy Cooperman, and Anna Seregina.
As to what this show might be, the show description reads, “Mystery. Machination. Murder? It all points to one thing… AN INTRIGUING NIGHT OF INTRIGUE.”
That all sounds pretty swell to us, so get your tickets here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, and maps can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
With a slate that has been so well-received that you probably have a bit of a hard time remembering what TBS used to be like a few years ago.
Now, with plenty of accolades collected for their shows, they’re pushing boldly forward with a plethora of new series including animated series such as Cops from Louis C.K. and Albert Brooks, Close Enough, Tarantula from Danny McBride and Carson Mell, and Final Space from Conan O’Brien and Olan Rogers as well as live action shows The Last O.G. from Jordan Peele with Tracy Morgan starring, The Guest Book and Miracle Workers, which comes from Simon Rich (Man Seeking Woman creator) with Daniel Radcliffe and Owen Wilson starring.
Here’s a small sampling of all of that coming soon to TBS.
Sometimes, you almost forget that Jimmy Kimmel, long ago, hosted The Man Show.
Now, he seems to be a Hollywood favorite to host not only his own late night talk show, but the biggest awards shows that Tinseltown has to offer as he will be hosting The Oscars once again in 2018.
Cue that one Drake song.
Conan and Team Coco have secured their place at TBS for the next four years and are aiming to expand the mutli-platform outreach of Conan beyond just the talk show through the cable network.
There are no specifics on how many international trips that Conan will get to take under the banner of “Conan Without Borders” or how might Clueless Gamer grow, but we imagine that plenty of good stuff is in the works.
On the announcement of this renewal, O’Brien commented, “The TV landscape has changed dramatically since I inherited the traditional talk show format in 1993. In the past few years I’ve stumbled across many new and exciting ways of connecting with my audience, and I’m eager to evolve my show into something leaner, more agile, and more unpredictable. I also want a pony.”
Veep showrunner David Mandel talking about having to reconfigure Veep because of the incompetence of Trump and his cronies could be a show by itself a la Talking Dead.
On last night’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, you can see how that would be show worthy as Mandel explains what he has had to do thus far because of Trump’s first 100 days.
Just a friendly reminder that season 5 of Arrested Development is official (though you probably already knew that from that Jason Bateman tweet) and will be arriving to Netflix next year.
The above photo is probably the most serious that you’ll ever see Gabe Liedman, Jenny Slate, and Max Silvestri be together. See them get much more silly at their wonderful show, Big Terrific this weekend.
Tickets are $30 and you can (and should) get them here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, and maps can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
The Meyers and a Cole clan return to further complicate things in all levels of relationships despite their desperate search to have life make sense.
It’s fun chaos as their expense and you can see for yourself in the season 3 trailer.
The new season starts streaming on Tuesday, May 23rd on Hulu.
Conan O’Brien and His Writers Are Going to Trial Over Alleged ‘Lifting of Jokes’ for Monologue
In comedy, parallel thought is just an unfortunate occupational hazard. More than once, we’ve seen comedians come up with the same joke, word-for-word, without either of them having the slightest inclination of doing anything coming close to joke theft.
In the more niche world of late night monologue joke writing, the likelihood of parallel thought increases times several over for reasons that were brought up in the hearing that preceded them moving to trial. Basically, there is “limited variation” in how a joke can be made from a day’s news headline, especially for the fact it has to be written as a one-liner joke rather than a longer bit, story, etc.
Therein lies the rub of having to prove intellectual theft or copyright infringement as it relates to joke thievery and why this trial is an important one.
Essentially, one Alex Kaseberg is claiming Conan writers saw his tweets and lifted them to use as monologue jokes on an episode of Conan. There is no “smoking gun” of access to Kaseberg’s feed (as opposed to what happened to Tig Notaro and her short film) where he posted the jokes that were allegedly lifted and yet, this case will be going to trial.
In the hearing, they actually had an “expert” calculate a percentage of how likely it would be that one of Conan’s writers and Kaseberg would come up with the same joke, which is just plain silly. While there is a limit on the angles one can have in a monologue joke based on the same premise, trying to calculate a percentage of a punchline being the same from two different people is a fool’s errand. Someone’s creativity can’t really be quantified to a specific number value and then be compared to someone else’s “creativity number value”.
So, this case has the potential to set a very dangerous precedent if it goes Kaseberg’s way.
If you watch a lot of late night monologues, you’ll notice that dozens and dozens of staff writers do come up with virtually the same punchline quite often. Much larger numbers of folks come up with similar punchlines on Twitter as well. None of those staff writers really hold a grudge to the point of filing a suit because they are well aware of how pervasive parallel thought is in their line of work and they also know that they’ll have to write a bunch of jokes the very next day and the day after that.
Joke thievery does happen, but, from where we’re standing, we see most people in comedy, especially with such a visible position as writing on a TV show, going to great lengths these days to avoid the horrendous scarlet label of “joke thief”.
As Rob Delaney pointed out after having a joke stolen from him, comedians and comedy writers ought to know that their comedy is more than just a few jokes as opposed to the thousands that they’ll write over their career.
Hopefully, this will all be sorted out soon and Conan and his staff can just write a fun, ridiculous sketch about it.
It only stands to reason that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will follow up the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End) with a whole damn production company.
Slaughterhouse Rulez, which will put Pegg and Frost back in their wheelhouse of twisting conventions comedically within well worn horror tropes and archetypes, seems like it would fit right into the “Cornetto Family”. This film will be the first release from their production company, Stolen Picture.
With all of that said, keep a close eye on Stolen Picture as they’ll be aiming for projects, both for TV and film, that will go global. We’re only speculating here, but perhaps that will mean more Edgar Wright projects will get lined up soon.
In fact, he’s calling it “Jordan Klepper Solves Guns” and talks to the likes of Senator Cory Booker, Former Army Special Ops Soldier Pat McNamara, Members of the Georgia Security Force Militia, and gun experts, gun nuts, etc.
Whether or not Klepper actually fulfills the premise of the title of this special, you should probably watch it as Klepper has been doing solid work in the field for The Daily Show.
Jordan Klepper Solves Guns premieres on Sunday, Jun. 11th at 10PM on Comedy Central.
David Letterman to Be Latest Recipient of Mark Twain Prize for Humor
Today, The Kennedy Center announced what’s regarded as America’s highest honor in comedy, The Mark Twain Prize for Humor, will be bestowed on one David Letterman.
For everything that Letterman did for late night and how he forever affected the way it was done, the award is well deserved.
Letting Jon Daly and his consciousness, subconscious, and fearlessness run free is pretty fantastic.
You can get an hour of that this Saturday. Tickets are available here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, and maps can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Jeff Sloniker, Heather Anne Campbell, and AOK have come up with a “hero” of sorts that has probably never been created throughout all the countless pages of comic book lore.
There’s probably good reason for that as the hero is known as “Cellphones For Hands Man”.
Megan Amram Pens an Open Letter from Trump’s Doctor Harold Bornstein
Every once in awhile, Megan Amram posts a gem on her Tumblr. This latest work is a send-up of Trump’s doctor that you probably know from pictures of his goofy looking mug, Dr. Harold Bornstein, via a satirical open letter.
Amram writes as Bornstein:
Mr. Trump is not only the healthiest president that has ever served, but also the most handsome. I usually want to kiss President Trump when I see him, but I would never break the doctor-patient trust, so instead I kiss the portrait of him I drew on my little note pad. There have been no presidents that even come close to President Trump in terms of overall health and hotness. Franklin Pierce was pretty hot, but his body wasn’t great. James Garfield was more cute than hot. President Trump is the total package. I know this because of my stethoscope.
Read and enjoy the rest here.
Who knew that Marc Maron playing a female pro wrestling league proprietor would be kind of perfect fit?
Well, GLOW creators Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch along with EP Jenji Kohan did and it looks like they’ve captured yet another great side of Alison Brie with this new dramedy focusing in on the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling back in the 80s.
See for yourself in the very first series trailer, the look for the series to start streaming on Friday, June 23rd on Netflix.
This seems like a great balance between letting chaos reign millennial style with Derrick Beckles and Eric Andre leaning into their particular brand of comedy madness and Jena Friedman getting another special to say exactly what the f she wants to say.
We’re excited to see both, even though they’ll probably be on either ends of some sort of spectrum.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine Is Getting a Fifth Season
Just recently announced, Brooklyn Nine-Nine got picked up by Fox for a fifth season.
At a time when so many comedies have gotten cancelled, both in their first season and after a few seasons under their belt, we can have a slight sigh of relief for Brooklyn’s funnest precinct.
On top of Will Ferrell giving the delightful, uplifting commencement speech that you’d expect from Ferrell, he is now has an honorary doctorate from USC and we can only hope that he uses that credit all the time, whether applicable or not.
Watch Ferrell’s speech to the USC Graduating Class of 2017 here.
Honestly, Jon Glaser in various bright, very pronounced neon outfits being Jon Glaser is almost enough to thoroughly enjoy the series. The whole werewolf thing is just icing on the cake.
See for yourself in the season 2 trailer of Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter, then look for the season premiere next Monday, May 22nd at midnight on Adult Swim.
Rather than do just a traditional trailer, Will & Grace really did go big, even bigger than that mini-reunion they did a while back, to let you know that they’re not only coming back to NBC this fall, but it’ll be like they never left the air.
See for yourself as they “re-assemble the fourth wall” and more here.
From July 6th to August 12th, the new Mystery Science Theater 3000 will be galavanting across North America from Boston to Atlanta to Vancouver to San Diego and plenty of places in between for their “Watch Out for Snakes!” Tour.
For the live shows, Hodgson and company have something special in store:
The tour consists of two separate, completely unique shows, each with its own admission. Fans wanting the complete tour experience should purchase two tickets, one for each show. Each event will include all the things expected from an “MST3K” experience: a cheesy B-movie, hilarious riffing, wisecracking robots, silly sketches, plus – for the first time – audience participation! Show # 1 is the MST3K favorite “Eegah,” featuring all-new riffs and sketches. Show # 2 is a “Secret Surprise Film!” It’s a fun, sci-fi thriller never before featured on “MST3K” and it will be performed only in select cities.
Tickets go on sale on Friday, May 19th at noon local time for whichever city the tickets are for. We’ll definitely keep you in the loop for more updates!
Laugh Lines is supporting a great cause, Trans Lifeline, a suicide prevention hotline for Trans youth, and has a great LGBTQ line-up as well.
Get your tickets here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, open mics, and maps can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
If everyone who used The Comedy Bureau pledged a $1 a month, especially with 11K followers on Twitter and 20K+ on Tumblr, we could run forever and go nationwide.
Please support us here. You can also support us through Venmo @ jakekroeger.