Well, 2019 is off to a good start with stand-up on late night (and Conan, the late night talk show that probably featured stand-up the most isn’t even back yet).
Joel Kim Booster delivered a sharp, spirited set on last night’s Late Late Show and effectively cancelled “table side guacamole”.
Watch and delight in his set here.
Don’t miss out on what should be the first wonderful house comedy show in LA for 2019 this weekend.
Not only are you getting to enjoy comedy in the intimacy of someone’s lovely home, but you’ll be enjoying the stand-up comedy stylings of:
Megan Gailey (Comedy Central)
Ahmed Bharoocha (Conan)
Ricarlo Flanagan (Shameless)
M.K. Paulsen (Inside Jokes)
Audrey Stewart (Laugh Factory)
Matt McClowry (SiriusXM)
&
Hosts Harry Moroz & Lynn Maleh
RSVP for FREE here.
ADA Notice: If you wish to attend this show and would like to use an assisted hearing device, please e-mail dirtpitloungecomedy@gmail.com with at least 24 hours notice, and they will happily arrange one for you.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
We don’t say this a lot here, but whoa.
Viceland is upping the ante a ton from pretty much every other late night show by having it be truly a unique variety show with the Vice touch, having four hosts (three of which are multi-hyphenate comedians and one that’s a hip hop artist), and going completely live (as opposed to live-to-tape, which all talk shows do these days).
This is so incredibly ambitious. In fact, SNL, a live variety comedy show known for how incredibly hard it is to produce, only goes weekly and doesn’t put up two hours of show. What this will end up being or looking like is anybody’s guess (save for the talent’s and Vice execs’), but this might be the kind of shake-up to the incredibly rigid late night talk show format (that was perfected by Johnny Carson decades ago) that we’ve been desperately looking for.
We will say that Vice’s last attempt at this, Desus & Mero, was a great shake-up as well and we can’t wait to see what they’ll end up doing at Showtime.
In any case, we’ve enjoyed much of the comedy of Marie Faustin, Sandy Honig, and Zack Fox when we’ve got to see them and we’re very, very intrigued to see what that trio along with hip-hop artist Fat Tony will be like on a nightly show.
Almost two weeks ago, we mentioned how Ahamed Weinberg and Steven Feinartz’s Please Understand Me, one of our favorite series from 2018, will have new episodes coming soon.
Well, ‘soon’ is finally here, which means more comedians playing out fictitious relationships in order to test the stalwart patience of real life therapists.
There are two unreleased episodes featuring Kate Berlant & Johnny Pemberton and Ahamed Weinberg & Punkie Johnson available now on Amazon Prime (along with the original 5 eps.). Just like the first batch, it’s such offbeat fun and you really ought to get into it here.
When the head moron in the White House announced the creation of a new “Space Force”, much of the world marveled at another revelation of how childish Trump really is.
Greg Daniels and Steve Carell will be sending up that very organization in a new Netflix series that was announced today simply titled Space Force.
No other details for the series exist at this time, but even if this puts a sort of Michael-Jim-Pam-Dwight dynamic in the setting of a Space Force Office, we’d probably be pretty OK with that. Another possibility might be more along the lines of a deep cut from Steve Martin’s filmography, Sgt. Bilko, a workplace comedy set on an Army base that specifically focused on fooling higher-ups that a hovering tank was both worked and was a good idea. It’s all speculation at this point unfortunately.
In any case, we’re excited that Carell will be working with Daniels on a comedy once again.
Fox Is Now Developing a Cross-Disciplinary Comedy Reality Competition ‘Funny People’
Rather than have the stand-ups, sketch/character performers, and improvisers stay in their own lanes with the likes of Last Comic Standing, First Impressions with Dana Carvey, and Whose Line Is It Anyway, Funny People, this latest televised comedy competition, will have all the performers have to exhibit their talent and prowess in each discipline.
It’s essentially a comedy decathlon. At this stage, it’s hard to say what this show will be, if it even gets greenlit (if it does, we hope they change the name to something less generic sounding), but we do know there are plenty of comedians these days that would thrive in any comedy situation that would be thrown at them.
Seeing them pull that off might just be really worth watching so long as they pick the right people.
Hebecky Drysbell, the all time champions of UCB’s Cagematch here in LA (78-0), are performing once more in a special one-night-only at the Pack Theater.
Truly, Heather Anne Campbell and Rebecca Drysdale together are one of the funniest comedy duos you’ll ever see, end of discussion.
This special engagement is happening this Saturday, January 19th at 10:30PM at The Pack Theater and, you’re in luck yet again, as admission is pay what you can. Get more details here.
Not only is this the first non-Christmas-special reunion of the winning Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray combo, but On The Rocks will very likely be the first prestige picture coming from the company that makes iPhones.
Everything here is lined up for this to be a sure bet with Coppola, Murray, Rashida Jones, and a premise that seems like a spiritual sequel to Lost In Translation (maybe we’ll finally figure out what Murray said to Scarlett Johansson?) that also might tap into that legendary mythos of Bill Murray himself:
The movie follows a young mother who reconnects with her larger than life playboy father on an adventure through New York. Rashida Jones will star with Murray. Production starts this spring in New York.
We’ll keep a close eye out for trailer to see how sure of a bet Apple and prestige film factory A24 are taking.
It has been an entire year since we first got to marvel at the dark comedy wunderkind from Jake Weisman, Matt Ingebretson, and Pat Bishop known as Corporate on Comedy Central. It’s among the darkest workplace comedies to ever make it to TV (if not the darkest), but it has been all the better for it. In fact, we’ve been jonesing for new episodes since season 1 ended and it did make our year end top 100 list.
We got to preview the second season and it absolutely delivers the catharsis you need for the times we live in.
So, please treat yourself and catch the Corporate season 2 premiere tonight at 10:30PM on Comedy Central.
So much of the weird comedy that you know and love today could trace a pretty much direct line all the way back to Ernie Kovacs (go down a YouTube rabbit hole and you’ll see what we’re saying) and the UCLA Film and Television Archive is doing a two night retrospective of the TV comedy pioneer
At the Billy Wilder Theater, they’ll be “…presenting two evenings of Ernie programming entitled Kovacsland Forever: Ernie Kovacs Centennial to the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood. On Friday, the archive will screen a variety of Kovacs clips and programs on the big screen. Some of his most iconic comedy and some very rare clips will be screened. The evening will also feature a panel discussion with Moderator Susan King and yours truly, who runs the Kovacs estate. On Saturday, the archive will screen one of Kovacs best known & best films Our Man in Havana.”
Tickets for either night, 7:30PM both at Fri., Jan. 18th & Sat., Jan. 19th, are $10 each and you can (and really should) get them here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Well, thank goodness that the Critics Choice Awards made up, as you can see below, where the Golden Globes were downright confounding this year. Also, we’ll give a round of applause for our favorites of 2018 The Favourite, Eighth Grade, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and BoJack Horseman.
Here are all the winners:
FILM
BEST ACTOR-Christian Bale – “Vice” (Annapurna)
BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS-Elsie Fisher – “Eighth Grade” (A24)
BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE-“The Favourite” (Fox Searchlight)
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE-“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (Sony)
BEST COMEDY-“Crazy Rich Asians” (Warner Bros.)
BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY-Christian Bale – “Vice” (Annapurna)
BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY-Olivia Colman – “The Favourite” (Fox Searchlight)
TELEVISION
BEST COMEDY SERIES-“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)
BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES-Bill Hader – “Barry” (HBO)
BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES-Rachel Brosnahan – “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES-Henry Winkler – “Barry” (HBO)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES-Alex Borstein – “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon)
BEST ANIMATED SERIES-“BoJack Horseman” (Netflix)
Check the full list of winners here.
When we were hearing rumblings of this project from Jordan Peele and Charlie Sanders, we were imagining a funnier version of Black Mirror. This trailer does not disappoint in this regard. In fact, the premise of Weird City having a dystopian populous divvied up literally between Haves and Have Nots is the sort of Peele touch we were hoping for.
See for yourself in the trailer for Weird City here, then look for the series on YouTube Originals starting Feb. 13th.
OK, you’ve got the first Super Serious Show (as we’ve said many times, one of our favorite shows in town) of 2019 with a line-up that includes Max Silvestri, Chris Garcia, Open Mike Eagle, Sara Schaefer, Demetri Martin AND a whole other separate show of Rory Scovel doing an hour.
That’s all for the price of one ticket folks ($7 in adv., $10 cash at door). If you’d want anymore out of this, it’s quite possible that you might just be a bit greedy.
Anyways, this undoubtedly will be an amazing night and you should go get your tickets here now.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Stalwart weekly stand-up show Big Money is coming up on its sixth year of this week, this Thursday in fact, and host Bryan Cook is pulling out all the stops for this one. Just look at that gorgeous line-up of LA comedy’s favorites.
Also, Bryan and Andy Wood will be playing with their Guilty Treasure Band after the show to mark the occasion. Don’t miss out this Thursday at 7:30PM at The Virgil. As always, admission is FREE.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screening, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
There are few details as we only heard this mentioned briefly in passing on the latest episode of the delightful podcast Pen Pals with Daniel and Rory (#GrowTheShow), but, apparently, there is a documentary in the works following the one and only Rory Scovel doing an entire performance (we’re assuming an hour) of stand-up entirely made up on the spot.
It was shot in Atlanta and Scovel called it a doc rather than a traditional comedy special, which leaves a lot to the imagination. Fortunately, when it comes to imagining what Rory does untethered to material, the possibilities are endless (and usually one of the funniest things you’ve ever seen like the time we saw him riff on concrete for 10 minutes).
The picture above is not from the doc, but just something we snapped recently because Rory came out on stage with a Bible he found backstage and was threatening to make the comedy show a Bible study of sorts. It’s the sort of magic that Rory is just great at creating.
We’ll keep you in the loop as more details emerge.
While you’re waiting for the world to forget about Sacha Baron Cohen so he can pull off another feat almost unbelievable undercover satire, you might do well to look elsewhere for your expert level ribbing of the powers that be. One of the places would be the works of Danish filmmaker Mads Brügger, who brought the world a documentary following a “comedy troupe” touring North Korea with Red Chapel.
Now, he’s coming out with a mockumentary that follows a scheming duo looking to set up a racket centered entirely around a St. Bernard. Even though it’s a mockumentary as opposed to a documentary, it looks to have some Baron-Cohen-esque fun.
See for yourself in the trailer here, then look for St. Bernard Syndicate in limited theatrical release starting Jan. 18th (and iTunes on Feb. 5th).
So, for 2019, Tig Notaro is turning her monthly Largo show into a talk show with one special guest. It seems like one of the few things that Tig hasn’t conquered in comedy and we’re very intrigued as to what that might be.
Get your tickets for this first show happening w/special guest Olivia Munn on Sat. Jan. 20th at 7:30PM for $35 here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
There are lots of things up in the air for 2019, but at least the time honored tradition of doing stand-up on late night talk shows is off to a great start with this set from Mekki Leeper where he killed on last night’s Late Late Show with James Corden.
We won’t say anymore as Mekki has a big, fun reveal in the middle of this set. Well, we’ll say one more thing: you should be following whatever Mekki is getting into if you aren’t doing so already (hopefully he’ll do another round of satirizing ads with Rebrand again).
Whether you’ve jump on board for the podcast John Levenstein’s Retirement Party over at Earwolf already or not (and perhaps you should if you want to hear great, insider stories from the Arrested Development/Kroll Show/Silicon Valley/Portlandia writer/actor/producer along with co-host Mary Kobayashi), they’ll be doing what seems to be a pretty grand live ep. at UCB Franklin near the end of the month featuring the likes of Jon Daly, Tim Heidecker, Sara Watkins, Lauren Lapkus, Jon Gabrus and former HBO President Sue Naegle as guests.
In fact, Gabrus and Lapkus will also be reading a scene from the 90s made-for-TV movie Bunk Bed Brothers.
This live edition of John Leveinstein’s Retirement Party is set for Thurs., Jan. 24th at 8PM. Get your tickets for $7 here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
Comedy Central is kicking off the year with four new hour specials and one of them just happens to be Roy Wood Jr.’s new hour, No One Loves You.
Between The Daily Show, This Is Not Happening, and continuing to do stand-up, it’s clear that Roy Wood Jr. has only grown and evolved and we’ve been enjoying every minute of it. See for yourself in this trailer.
Then, look for the premiere of the wonderfully titled No One Loves You on Comedy Central on Fri. Jan. 25th at 11PM.
It took the rare talents of someone like Bill Murray to not only make Groundhog Day work, but be one of the most beloved comedies of all time.
Fortunately, we’re pretty sure that Natasha Lyonne is one of those talents as this trailer for the upcoming Netflix series Russian Doll (coming from Lyonne, Amy Poehler, and Leslye Headland), despite stepping into well worn comedic territory of reliving the same day over-and-over, is pretty enticing pretty much because of her.
See for yourself here, then mark Feb. 1st on your calendar for season 1 to begin streaming.
After a far too long hiatus in town, Baron Vaughn and Open Mike Eagle’s The New Negroes (hopefully their Comedy Central series of the same name will premiere soon this year as well) is back! More brilliant wordplay, rapping, stand-up, and more are thankfully on the horizon from Vaughn and Mike.
So, this first 2019 edition of New Negroes will happen at at The Virgil on Sun., Jan. 27th at 7:30PM (and happen every 4th Sunday of the month going forward). The line-up, of course, is pretty grand with:
Sasheer Zamata
Langston Kerman
Janelle James
Yusuf Ali
Katrina Davis
Troy Walker
So, go get your tickets in advance for $7 here (or you can chance paying $10 at the door-cash only)
The rest of our listings for shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
The aforementioned Kelsey Caine, Daniel Webb, Maggie Maye, and Martin Urbano make up for one hell of a line-up of comedians that, honestly, should already be known in every corner of this country.
Fortunately, they’ll be touring a good portion of the U.S. starting this February 12th at Austin, TX’s North Door. If you’re in or around Austin, Houston, Chicago, Denver, Boulder, Seattle, and Los Angeles, we highly urge you to catch this Comedy Royalty tour at any of those stops.
They’ll be playing Chicago’s Hideout Inn on Feb. 18th and Dynasty Typewriter here in LA on March 8th. Please follow Kelsey, Daniel, Maggie, and Martin for more dates and details.
We’ve got a good feeling that this show, The Professionals*, will be kind of like Tough Crowd with a modern twist (a thing we’ve been wishing would happen for awhile). Whether the comedians on the panel end up pulling off sounding like professionals outside of their areas of expertise or not, it’s an amazing line-up worthy of going to see do pretty much anything (we mean, just look at it).
Tickets are $5 in advance and $8 at the door. Go get them quick here.
The rest of our listings for comedy shows, events, screenings, open mics, maps, and more can be found at www.thecomedybureau.com.
While it’s sad to see one of the all-time best storytelling podcasts, The Crabfeast, come to an end, you have almost nothing to worry about as both hosts Ryan Sickler and Jay Larson will be doing their own storytelling-driven podcasts.
For starters, Ryan Sickler will be finding the stories of shortcomings, failures, hard times, etc. with hilarious guests and sharing them on his new podcast, The HoneyDew. Taking a listen to the first episode with Josh Adam Meyers, it’s clear Sickler won’t have lost a single step since the Crabfeast ended. It’s reveling in the “honeydew”, perfectly good fruit, that always seems to get passed up.
Take and listen and subscribe to The HoneyDew on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you subscribed to the Crabfeast, the feed has changed over already.